With Love From Ma Maguire (18 page)

He groaned self-pityingly. From now on he’d be forced to wear a glove on his unsightly right hand, keep it covered up so as not to put folk off. Molly mostly.

She entered the house as suddenly as she had entered his thoughts, all bounce and life and colour, a basket of food on her arm, a giant bunch of roses balanced on top of this bounty. ‘Ma!’ She threw her free arm around the tall lady. ‘I’ve got some home-grown spuds and half a ham. The boss sends his best and the powder money. There’s cake too . . . hello, Paddy.’

He grunted a half-hearted response, sick to death of forever being an afterthought. Always Ma first and him last. And she looked different, didn’t she? He opened his mouth to speak, but the two of them were chattering away like magpies as usual, so he sat back to bide his time.

‘I hear that the old man’s ill?’ Ma’s voice was cool, though it hid a thousand emotions, feelings she could never have analysed or even identified in a lifetime.

‘Yes. He doesn’t go to work much now, but he spends hours on the phone shouting at somebody. He’s funny on the phone, thinks he’s got to be loud ’cos the folk on the other end are a long way down the road.’

‘What’s . . . er . . . what’s his trouble?’

‘Well, there’s his leg as you know. Then he’s got summat up with his blood, too much sugar in it, I think the cook said. He’s not supposed to have anything sweet or a drink of brandy. Course, he takes no notice when it comes to the drinking, though he seems to have lost interest in food. His heart’s not so good and he can’t breathe proper. Nobody cares about him ’cepting Master Charles. I know old Swainbank’s not a good man, Ma, but I don’t like seeing anybody suffer like that.’

‘No. No, I’m sure you don’t.’

Paddy cleared his throat loudly. ‘New frock?’

‘Yes. Master Charles gave me a load of stuff from the mills, material that would have gone on the outside market as seconds. He said I could make it up in me spare time. Not that there’s enough hours in a day what with Cook and Madam going on all the while.’

‘Treating you all right?’ Ma’s eye travelled over the trim young figure in the crisp white dress. ‘You look smart, sure enough.’

‘They don’t treat me exactly bad. You see, to be a good housemaid, you’ve got to be nearly invisible, do all the work in a way that’s not noticeable. I just have to do me best to become invisible, that’s all.’

‘Well, you’ll never disappear in that frock,’ mumbled Paddy.

She rounded on him. ‘I don’t wear this at work, Clever Clogs. I wear me black frock and . . .’

‘I know. A daft hat and a pinny with a frill.’

‘Oh shut up, you miserable devil!’ She turned her attention to Ma. ‘They’ve all had a big row.’ After placing the basket on the table, Molly seated herself opposite Paddy and beckoned Ma to join them by the fire. The older woman turned one of the chairs from the table and they sat in a semi-circle while Molly gossiped, her eyes ablaze with merriment as she imitated various members of the household. ‘So Master Harold and Mrs Alice have been cast out into the cold, Ma. Oh, you should have seen it! Mrs Alice wept that many tears, we were thinking of following her round with a mop and bucket. The day they left, she’d sort of hardened up a bit – in fact, she’d a face on her like a clog bottom with new irons on when she sailed through that front door. Mind, I’m glad they’ve gone, ’cos young Cyril was a right pain in the neck and I was sick of hiding in corners trying me best to be invisible and not to laugh when she started, “Oh Daddy. Please let us stay here and look after you.” Huh! The only one she’ll look after is herself, I can tell you. But he’s right hard-faced is old Mr Swainbank. I don’t think he gives a thought to anybody, even his wife. Nobody up there cares, except Master Charles. Talk about a loving family – you could slice pieces out of the air with a butter knife when they’re all in the one room. Ooh, but she’s mean, that old Bea. I reckon if she had her own road, we’d be counting grains of sugar well past bedtime. Cook’s all right, though. Always sends you a parcel, doesn’t she?’

‘And so she should,’ said Ma. ‘She staggered in here five years ago with ingrown toenails and I cured her, so she owes me the odd favour.’

Paddy leaned forward, his face grey with the pain in his hand. ‘He’s no call to be giving you cloth for frocks. What does he think you are – a bloody charity case?’

‘Less of the language, Paddy!’ Ma took a tiny box from her apron pocket and, after spreading snuff along the back of her hand, she inhaled deeply of the mustard-coloured powder. This new habit thoroughly infuriated Paddy who was forced, because of his chest, to sneak out to the yard whenever he craved a smoke. ‘I wish you’d come to your senses and get home where you belong,’ he said to Molly now.

‘Leave her be.’ Ma snapped the lid of the small tin. ‘Isn’t Charlie Swainbank supposed to be your friend at least? Wasn’t he the one who promised you work when the hand’s better? Aye and driving lessons too. Sure, he’s only helping Molly because he knows what a desperate terrible woman he has for a mother.’ She turned to her adopted daughter. ‘And how’s Mrs Amelia?’

Molly’s face creased into a frown. ‘I don’t see much of her now, only I reckon she’s in the dumps. Can’t get out of bed, can’t get comfortable because her back and heels are sore with lying down all the while. She’s got a full-time nurse and she’s still three months to go. Eeh, I think about her sometimes and wonder if it’s worth it. All het up, she gets, in case she doesn’t have a lad to follow on. There’s nowt as queer as rich folk, Ma. I mean, as long as she’s all right, why do they worry and make such a song and dance?’

Ma smiled grimly. ‘It’s the line, Molly. The old man likely wants a grandson off his eldest, because from what I’ve heard of Harold – well – he couldn’t even produce a decent sneeze. And you say his wife’s not up to much either, which won’t please old Richard. Just don’t waste your time trying to work them out, girl, for you’ll never manage it. They’re a different breed, that’s all I know.’

‘A breed you’d be best away from.’ There was a hint of steel in Paddy’s tone. ‘It’s all right for me to go and work for them – I can look after meself, stick up for meself. But I don’t like the thought of you bowing and scraping to that lot all the while. Nobody in this house has ever been a servant before.’

Ma kept her counsel, bit back the ready reply which hovered so temptingly on the tip of her tongue. Every man was a servant – aye, and every woman too. A slave to a master, a husband, a wife, a child. Hadn’t this son of hers ruled the roost from the very day of his birth and hadn’t she allowed that? Weren’t rich and poor alike the slaves of fortune, tossed this way and that on an ever-changing tide, victims every one of them, terrified of the bigger man, the fuller purse, the empty larder? And now Richard faced the final tyrant, the one over which no man had emerged victorious. In the end there was only the certainty of death. But these wise thoughts she kept to herself, knowing that the other occupants of the room were not ready to hear that life could be an endless prison, that the ultimate escape was essentially negative and finally destructive, that nothing could be done to hold back that tide.

She looked at the two youngsters and, realizing that the usual subject was about to rear its head, picked up the basket and carried it through to the scullery. It was obvious that Paddy had set his heart on marrying the girl for all he was only seventeen. And with his track record thus far, Ma would not be too surprised if he got his way simply by expecting to get it. She closed the door. This was one area where she would not interfere directly. She had said her piece and if he was still determined to pursue Molly, there was little to be done.

‘I’m too young to get wed.’ Molly smoothed the folds of her new dress. ‘And so are you, Paddy. There’s loads of girls out there . . .’ She waved a hand towards the window.

‘Aye and they can stop out there and all. Come home, lass. We can live here and you could happen get something part-time if you want to carry on working. Then there’s Ma and her medicines – you could help her. Since Freddie Chadwick shut the shop, she’s been on her own here, nobody to talk to all day—’

‘Don’t, Paddy.’

‘Don’t what?’

‘Well . . . getting me worried, making me feel guilty ’cos Ma’s stuck here by herself. It’s not my fault, is it? I went into service because I’d sooner that than the mill and I don’t see why you should carry on like this. Why shouldn’t I work? I went up to Briars Hall to better meself – I could end up a ladies’ maid in London or somewhere interesting if I got trained proper.’

He stretched his legs across the peg rug and kicked her toe gently. ‘To hell with London! You went up there to get away from me, didn’t you?’

‘No!’

‘Course you did. You were feared in case I touched you, frightened I’d get you in trouble deliberate so’s we’d have to get wed. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. There was no need for you to take on and run away like that . . .’

She jumped up, cheeks blazing with temper. ‘I didn’t run away! I went for a job, same as any girl would after leaving school. I didn’t run at that age, did I? We’d no notions of getting wed at fourteen, for God’s sake! Mind, you were getting a bit too interested even then, I will admit that much. Look Paddy, I’ve served three years in that bloody kitchen, three years past me elbows in grease and mucky water. Do you think I went through all that for nowt? I want to work me way up, happen be a housekeeper in time . . .’

‘In somebody else’s house?’

She stamped her foot angrily. ‘What’s the difference? Somebody else’s house, somebody else’s farm or factory? What do you expect me to do? Go out and buy me own business just like that?’ She snapped finger and thumb together. ‘You’ve always been a dreamer, Paddy—’

‘So have you. When we were kids, you said every day that we’d get married. Mithered to death with it, I was, all about your long white frock and the matching rosary beads. Why have you changed? You never go to church no more – and you were all for turning. What’s happened? Did the sky fall down and I never noticed?’

Molly leaned heavily against the table’s edge. ‘I grew up. We both did. Look, I’m not saying we won’t get wed, ’cos we might. Only we should meet other people first, so we can choose, like—’

‘What for? I don’t need to pick one out, I’ve already chosen! If you don’t marry me, Molly Dobson, I’ll be like a priest all me life.’

She threw back her head and howled with laughter. ‘You? Like a priest? Well, I’ve never heard a priest swear like you do, Paddy Maguire.’

‘Hush – she’ll hear you.’

‘You’re not still a-feared of your mam, are you? ’Cos I’ve never found her all that frightening.’

‘Aye, well.’ He drew in his chin and stared down at the rug. ‘You never had a bad chest and funny hands, did you? Molly – listen to me.’

‘I’m all ears.’

He swallowed. ‘I might die.’

Molly paused fractionally. ‘So might we all any minute. With Master Charles racing round the estate in his car and Master Harold leaping about on his horse, I could be a pancake three times a day.’

He leaned forward and held out the bandaged hand. ‘See that? They said it can go into me blood and kill me. Well, when it does, I’ll have the words printed on me gravestone, “Broken heart thanks to Molly Dobson”. They’ll come for miles to read that and you’ll be branded as a wicked woman.’ He attempted a smile. ‘Could you live with that?’

She began to pace back and forth about the room, arms waving wildly as she shouted, ‘Give over, will you? I’ll make up me own mind in me own time. And if we do ever get wed, it’ll be nowt to do with your hand or with your mam needing company.’ She swung round to face him, checking herself as she noticed the pain in his eyes. It was real pain, physical hurt, not just from her words. The hand must be bad, really bad . . . ‘Please let me think, love. Give me time. Happen when we’re nearer twenty . . .’

Ma entered with a tray of ham sandwiches. ‘Cook has done us proud again, sure enough. Give her my regards, Molly. Oh, and take the kettle off the fire and scald the pot, there’s a good girl.’ She placed the tray on the table. ‘Have ye settled the differences or will it take an Act of Parliament?’

While Molly brewed the tea, Paddy stared sullenly into the fire. With a tenderness she had seldom displayed in recent years, Ma came to his side and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I know, son,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll be fine.’

After the two young people had left, Paddy escorting Molly back to her work, Ma took the beads from her pocket and knelt before the Virgin, offering up decade after decade, praying till her knees were sore and her back ached with stiffness. She blessed herself and perched on the edge of a dining chair, eyes still fixed on the statue. As always, once the serious praying was done, she talked to Mary as if the two of them were the best of friends. ‘Help him, Mother.’ She sighed deeply and looked briefly at the ceiling, impatient with herself, not understanding her mixed feelings at all. ‘What sort of a woman am I, praying now for a man who wanted to sin with me?’

But she could picture him in her mind’s eye, that fine strong man reduced to wreckage, the noble face shrivelled by time and pain. And she remembered how he’d offered to buy Paddy’s pram, how he’d tried, in his own bumbling way, to look after her, watch over her from afar. Richard Swainbank had loved her . . .

Yes, she was for the workers, was Ma Maguire. A fighter, an orator, a troublemaker. Yet this one man had entered her heart, never invited, never properly welcomed. And she knew why he had this special place, just as she’d always known why. He might be a boss, a man of substance, yet right down to every single fibre and sinew of his body, Richard Swainbank was a worker. A cruel, lonely, sad, working man.

Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks as she pushed the rosary into her pocket. She turned to look at the Sacred Heart whose wounds were blurred now by the moisture in her eyes. ‘Don’t let him suffer, Lord. That’s all I ask, that he should not suffer . . .’

In Molly’s opinion, Charles Swainbank was a very handsome man, just as good-looking as a film star. In fact, he made the Rudolph Valentinos of this world seem a bit pallid and unadventurous, because Master Charles was big, heavy-muscled and colourful, a real swashbuckler striding out ready to take life by the throat, feared of nothing. She looked at him a lot these days, assessing him as if he were an object, something that would look nice in a certain setting, like on a stage or dressed up as a cowboy with a big white hat and a huge white horse. It occurred to her briefly that she was doing what men usually did to women, weighing him up for physical charm, looking at him as if she were about to buy him in the same way as she might choose a new lamp for the front room. But he was grand, right enough. At least six feet tall and with a bold, straight carriage, not like some lofty men who seemed to get round-shouldered through bending to talk down to shorter folk.