Pure as the Lily (4 page)

She was sixty-three years old and when she had been thirty-four, as Alice was now, she had likely looked the same, and, like Alice, been entirely unaware that her claim to good looks was marred by her expression of peevishness.

Grandma McAlister looked at her son-in-law sitting in the armchair to the side of the high, slack-coal-banked fire, and her tone itself was an accusation as she said, “She not back yet?1

“No.” Alee rose slowly to his feet.

“She’s a bit late but she should be in any minute. Sit down. Sit down, won’t you? Will I make you a drop tea?”

“No; no thanks.

“Tisn’t long since I had mine.” She sat down in the chair opposite and Alee resumed his seat. She had not spoken to Mary who was ironing on the scullery table that had been brought into the kitchen, nor had she spoken to Jimmy who was sitting doing his homework. But after a few moments of stretching one leg out, and then the other, as if to ease a cramp, she brought her feet together, folded her hands in her lap, looked at Alee and said, “Nothing doing?”

“No, nothing doing.”

“Ted Bainbridge, you know next to me, he got set on in Wallsend last week.”

“Lucky for him. We were over that way this morning we nearly got set upon, not set on.”

“Well, you shouldn’t go over there and cause a disturbance.”

“Who said we went to cause a disturbance?” Alec’s voice was rising.

“We went lookin’ for work. We’d been told there was some going.

Disturbance! What do you mean, causing a disturbance? “

“Well, look at what happened over at North Shields last year. They say it was the Shields lot an’

fellows going over from here and incitin’ them.”

“Oh my God!” Alee moved his head slowly. They don’t need any incitement, their dole queues are as long as ours. What you’re on about was the demonstration. They were demonstrating against. “

“Demonstration! Better if they used their energy to look for work.”

“Oh dear God!” Alee uttered the words to himself as if in prayer.

Could you blame Alice for going on like she did, being brought up by that one sitting there? If ever there was a numskull in this world it was her.

“She’s a long time.” Mabel McAlister looked round the aa room, and her eyes came to rest on Mary and she said, Your ma’s a long time. Go and see what’s keepin’ her. “ Mary did not answer her grandma but glanced towards her father, and when he gave her an almost imperceptible nod she laid the flat iron on the fender, saying to him, “Will you take the heater out of the fire for me, Da?” Then she went from the room and into her bedroom, and there, taking her working coat, she buttoned it up to her neck, tied a scarf tightly round her head, and went down the front stairs and out of the front door so that she wouldn’t have to pass through the kitchen and look at her grannie again. She couldn’t stand her grannie McAlister.

The house was the last but one at the top of the street, and at the bottom end was Mr. Tollett’s shop where her ma worked.

Mr. Tollett was a nice man, Mary considered, different. He had only been in the shop about four years; he came and took it over when his father died. His father and mother had died within a month of each other, it had been very sad. Some people said that they had died through worry because they’d had to close up their other two shops owing to bad debts.

Mr. Tollett hadn’t been married when he first came home but shortly after he married a girl from Newcastle, from Jesmond, the posh end.

They said she hardly spoke to anyone around the doors. Mary only remembered seeing her once or twice because she never showed herself in the shop. She hadn’t been bad-looking, but sort of uppish.

Then last year she had gone and died, leaving a baby only a year old. It was from then that her mother had gone to work for Mr. Tollett. It was just the baby, the house, and the meals she saw to at first; but now she helped in the shop. She went three times a day, even on Sundays.

Half-way down the street there was an alleyway leading to Crowdon Road. There was a lamp-post on the edge of the pavement opposite the alleyway around which there was always a crowd of children playing, but

tonight, raining heavily as it was, there were no children. But as she approached the lamp-post she made out two dim figures standing opposite in the shelter of the draughty passage, and when she recognized them her heart began to beat a little faster. They were Hughie Amesden and Paul Connelly.

It was Paul Connelly as always who spoke to her.

“Hello Mary,” he said.

She stopped tentatively, standing in the middle of the pavement within the halo of the lamp.

“Hello,” she said.

“Going some place?”

“Just to the shop.” She looked at Paul as she answered him but all the while she was seeing Hughie.

She had no need to look at Hughie to see him; she saw him so clearly in the night that she almost imagined he was sitting on the side of her bed talking to her, and the fact that he should talk to her would, she knew, be as great an impossibility as to find him sitting on the side of her bed, for he never spoke to her.

He had once said “Hello,” but that was the only exchange that had been between them, and she had known him since she was ten. He was so good-looking that even the texture of his skin made her ache to look at it; his face was long and pale, his eyes deep-set and dark, but his hair was fair and wavy.

Added to all these charms was Hughie’s height. He was the tallest boy in all the streets around, he must be all of six foot now and still only seventeen. She’d never forget the first day she knew she loved him. It was one Sunday night last summer. Mrs. Turner had given her a frock. She had altered it, and she felt she looked bonny in it, so she had gone to church in the evening, because more people could see you in church. If you came out late they were standing about and they looked at you. And she wanted people to see her new frock because she had never had one like it; what was more, she’d had to fight to keep it because her mother had wanted it her mother took most of the things that Mrs. Turner gave her, her mother liked dressing up. The dress was of a dull yellow colour, not gaudy. She didn’t know what the material was but it was like a fine wool. It had a square neck and a full skirt. She hadn’t the dress anymore; her mother had burnt it. She threw it into the fire when they were having a row. But on that Sunday night Paul Connelly and Hughie Amesden were standing at the end of the road. She saw them immediately she left the church steps because Hughie Amesden always stood out above everybody else, and she remembered walking towards them and then the most odd thing happened. It was lovely but frightening. She saw Hughie Amesden slowly disappear into a white light;

there was nothing left of him but white light, it even blotted out Paul Gonnelly. And the other funny thing was she never remembered passing them. She was a full street away when she came to herself and she thought, Where’s he gone? And she had turned round, and there they were right at the far end of the street and she hadn’t been aware of passing them. She had stood with her hand to her throat and had gulped and then coughed, and a woman passing by had stopped and said, “Are you all right, hinny?” She had taken hold of her arm and added, “Why, you’re shivering, lass; you’ve got a summer cold.” She had nodded at the woman, then walked on; and she had known she had fallen in love with Hughie Amesden, that she’d always been in love with him since he had first come into the neighbourhood when she was ten. Yet he had never, never spoken to her, only that once when they were standing in the picture queue. He had come and stood by her side and said, “Hello,” and she had said “Hello,” back; and then he had gone into the six pennies and she into the three—pennies.

On the other hand, Paul Connelly was always wanting to talk to her.

But she couldn’t stand Paul Connelly. She didn’t know why HughieAmesden and he were friends because Paul was only about half the size, they looked like Mutt and Jeff.

She now raised her rain-wet lashes and looked at the Adonis, and he looked back at her, and at this she drooped her head and muttered,

“I’ll have to be going, I’m going for Neither of them made any comment on this explanation and the three of them stared at each other for a moment longer, then she turned awkwardly and ran down the street.

She was trembling again; she always trembled when she saw Hughie Amesden.

When she came to the shop there were no children jumping up and down on the low sill or playing bays on the pavement with their hitchidobbers. She put her face close to the window and saw that the shop was empty, which was a rare occurrence, because Mr. Tollett sold practically everything and there was always somebody wanting something from half past seven in the morning until eight at night, ten on a Saturday.

The shop was situated on a corner, with one window in Cornice Street and another in Benbow Street, the short street that was linked with Crowdon Road. The back door to the premises was in Benbow Street, and it led into a bads—yard nearly always filled with boxes of all shapes and sizes. There were two rooms behind the shop that were used as storerooms. In the main one Mr. Tollett kept his tubs of butter and rounds of cheese and sacks of flour, and there were nails in the ceiling from where he hung the sides of bacon. The other room he kept for storing tat ties and green grocery The door from the backyard leading into the first room had a pane of glass in the upper half.

Next to this door was another that led into what had once been a separate house. The downstairs part had been turned into a garage, but the upstairs, consisting of four rooms, had been opened up to join those above the shop. Altogether, it was a grand place. She had been up there only once and had only glimpsed the sitting-room, but had been amazed at the size of it. Mr. Tollett had had two rooms knocked into one; it was really lovely. Her mother had almost shooed her out.

She had said she wasn’t to come bothering, Mr. Tollett didn’t want the street in. She had wanted to say to her mother that she wasn’t the street, she was her daughter who had come with a message from her da.

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She was going towards the door now that led into the house when she saw the outline of a figure moving behind the rain-smeared glass pane.

That was her ma. Perhaps she was helping to put orders up. As her hand went towards the latch her faced moved closer to the pane of glass and now she could make out not only her mother but also Mr.

Tollett, and saw that they were talking.

The room was brightly lit but the rain-patterned glass distorted her mother’s features, and at first she thought that it was this that was making her look different. Then her hand dropped from the latch and she peered intently through the window. Her mother did look different, and it wasn’t because of the wet glass. She had never seen her mother looking like this. She was looking into Mr. Tollett’s face and her expression was soft and pleading; she looked young. She noticed that she kept wetting her lips. She saw Mr. Tollett bow his head while her mother kept on talking; she couldn’t hear what she was saying because of the wind and the lashing rain. But now she saw Mr.

Tollett pick up something from a chair. It was her mother’s coat. She watched her mother put it on; her head was drooping now.

When Mr. Tollett suddenly came towards the door, she sprang back and nearly fell into the boxes stacked near the wall. If it hadn’t been for the wind they would have heard her scrambling to the side of them.

She stood with her back pressed against a drainpipe that was blocked at the top, and the water splashed down on to her and almost blinded her, but she daren’t lift her hand up in case it attracted their attention because they were in the yard now.

She put her head to one side away from the water spout and she could see Mr. Tollett and her mother standing in the beam of light from the doorway. Mr. Tollett had his hand on the outside door and he was saying, Tt isn’t that I’m un grateful, Alice, don’t think that, but. but it wouldn’t be right. Alec’s a good man; I’ve known him for years, he’s a good man. “

Her mother’s voice came to her now, thin and grim, saying, “Good man!

You don’t know. He doesn’t need me, nor me him; there’s been nothing, well, not for years. I tell you, Ben. “ There followed a silence as if somebody had put a hand across her mouth.

Mr. Tollett was holding the back door open and she saw her mother step slowly through it and into the street. She saw Mr. Tollett thrust the bolt home, pause for a moment with his hands still on it, then turn towards the back door. She thought she heard him mutter “God Almighty!” but she couldn’t be sure.

She remained where she was, frightened to move, until there came faintly through the wall the sound of the shop bell ringing. She let a few minutes elapse, then she groped her way to the wall door, undid the bolt and went out into the street, and strangely she wasn’t thinking about her ma and Mr. Toilet, but about her da, and she kept repeating in her mind, “Oh, Da. Da.” It wasn’t until she had almost reached the house that she thought, me ma wants to go with Mr. Tollett, she was offering herself to Mr.

Tollett. She recalled vaguely that her ma had known Mr. Tollett about the time when she first knew her da. Then Mr. Tollett had gone away to live in the south with an aunt, and had worked in a car factory or had something to do with cars, it was all very vague but she could just remember her da talking about it with her gran da and her da saying, “He won’t take to the shop; he could never stand the shops, that’s why he went away.”

Her da had never been happy since he had been out of work, but his unhappiness seemed to have deepened this last year, since her ma had gone to work for Mr. Tollett And this was the reason. He knew about her ma wanting Mr. Tollett.

As her body’s reaction was to tremble at the sight of her first love, Hughie, so it now ached with physical pain that was akin to anguish when it touched on the plight of her constant love, her da. Her da must be feeling awful, awful, because he must love her ma. He must have loved her, mustn’t he, to have married her in the first place? And he must still love her because if he didn’t he wouldn’t be hurt as he was. So she reasoned.