With Love From Ma Maguire (54 page)

‘Shut up, eejit!’ yelled Ma. She turned to the guardian of the law whose face was now severely contorted as he fought back a laugh. ‘Sorry for your trouble, officer,’ she said sweetly.

‘I wish . . . I wish your Paddy’d have a word with our Chief.’

‘And why would you be wanting that now?’

‘He’s—’ The voice was strangled. ‘Worshipful Master this year.’

Ma nodded sagely. ‘Our congratulations to him, young man. Now, this boy is drunk – as you can see – so I’d be glad if his silliness went no further than your good self.’

‘Fair enough, Missus. Only keep him off the streets for a week or two, will you? If he walks in that Lodge again, he’ll be coming back out with a few bits missing.’

The policeman left, his broad back shaking with mirth.

Ma sank into her regular place at the table. ‘Molly!’ she cried. ‘What are we to do with them all? We’ve one in the river, another locked up with the bacon, the child with petty whatever the doctor said and twins at each other’s throats. What’ll we do?’

‘We either laugh or flaming well cry!’ Molly walked to her husband’s side. ‘Come on lad. Bed for you and no messing. You must be frozen through.’

Paddy got up and stood swaying dangerously by the fireplace. ‘Hang on a minute,’ he said carefully. Janet and Joey arrived in the doorway just in time to notice what followed, then disappeared quickly when they saw what was happening, returning to their pot towels to stifle chuckles which threatened to explode any second.

Like a conjurer at Bolton Fair, Paddy produced quarters of boiled ham and corned beef from his inside pockets, a greasy package of bacon from the shirt front, then two pork chops from his trouser pockets. These latter items he studied closely, brushing and picking odd bits of fluff from their surfaces.

This was all too much for Ma and Molly. They screamed their mirth into the room, both women gasping for breath between bouts of laughter.

Paddy rounded off his performance by discovering a sheep’s eye in his waistcoat and he impaled this object on an index finger. ‘Poor sheep,’ he mumbled sadly. He tried to fix his family with a steely stare, failing completely due to lack of focus. ‘Never say . . .’ the finger wagged. ‘Never say I don’t look out for me own folk.’ Then he staggered upstairs, sheep’s eye and all, to sleep it off.

Daisy giggled. ‘He’s naughty. Will it be a sin to eat the meat, Gran?’

But there was no getting a sensible answer from anyone. The twins entered from the scullery and joined in the merriment at the sight of Paddy’s ill-gotten gains. Joey gathered them up and was just about to take them through to the meat-safe, when a rapping at the door put a sudden end to all the cavorting. He bundled the stolen goods into the dresser and tried to look casual while Ma went to answer.

They all watched as she gasped and stepped back a fraction, her hand straying along the wall for support. ‘Molly?’

‘Yes, Ma?’

‘It’s . . . it’s Mr Swainbank.’

Chapter 13

Charles Swainbank surveyed the group of people in the cramped room. They looked terrified, all of them. Molly and Ma for obvious reasons, Janet because he was her boss, Joey because his sister seemed nervous, while the little girl was already out of order, lying on a couch covered in blankets and coats. He removed his trilby and stood awkwardly in the doorway, the hat twisting between restless fingers. ‘I’m . . . er . . . your new landlord.’

Ma tutted under her breath before speaking. ‘We know that, Mr Swainbank.’ There was an edge to her voice – little short of a note of warning. She was recovering from the initial shock, that was plain to see.

‘I just came round to check the quality of workmanship – I’ve been to several of the other houses too. If this is an inconvenient time, I’ll call again—’

‘No!’ Molly approached him, her face white with terror. ‘You own the house – you look at it!’ She didn’t want him coming back again, didn’t like the idea of him getting a foot in the door more than once. Oh aye, he’d said he intended to get to know the twins – but here? In their own house? ‘Do you want to go all through?’ she asked, her voice not quite steady. ‘Only our Michael’s still in the bath – he’s been up there hours – and me husband’s in bed with a chill.’

Janet and Joey, discomfort forgotten as they realized that the caller was in no way connected with them, hid their faces, mirth threatening to arise anew. In bed with a chill? More like a big freeze, it was, though no doubt the brandy under the bed would hasten the thawing process.

Charles stared at Molly in her washed-out flowered apron. Had he switched off the light in those green eyes, turned it out like an electric lamp? Molly! He forced himself to walk further into the room. It was about the size of one of the pantries up at the Hall, not much bigger than a cupboard with a window, really. And his children, his own flesh and blood had spent their short lives here. ‘No, I don’t need to go poking about the place, thank you. I just wanted to make sure you were satisfied with the improvements.’ He paused. ‘Is this your son?’

Molly nodded, her face stripped completely of expression. ‘Yes, this is our Joey. Joey – Mr Swainbank, Janet’s boss and our new landlord.’

The boy grunted a curt greeting. So here was the feller who thought a right lot of their Janet, who had courted her away from the shop. He decided there and then not to like this uninvited guest. If it wasn’t for bloody Swainbank, their Janet could have had a counter all her own, ribbons and buttons, a ladylike kind of business. Instead, she had condemned herself to drudgery and this chap here was encouraging such stupidity. ‘I’m off out.’ His face wore a dark frown.

‘But you’ve not had your tea!’ Molly rushed to the oven. ‘Pie’s nearly ready.’

The boy glanced pointedly in the direction of the intruder. ‘I’ll come back when there’s a bit more room in the house!’ He walked out past Charles, not bothering to meet the man’s eyes as he left.

There followed an uncomfortable silence. ‘Well,’ ventured Charles at last. ‘Are you happy with the alterations?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ Molly’s tone was as cool and dismissive as she could manage. ‘It’s very good of you, I’m sure.’

‘Right. I’ll . . . er . . . I’ll be going, then.’ He took a backward step towards the door.

‘Would you hang on awhile, please?’ said Ma. ‘There’s a thing or two needs doing and as the rent-book is in my name, we should perhaps discuss the business privately.’ She looked meaningfully at Molly. ‘Serve the tea up. I’ll take mine later. Mr Swainbank and I will go into my room.’

Janet remained fastened to the spot, her eyes wide with disbelief as the boss followed Ma like a little lamb into the front room. Gran was a powerful woman all right, a force to be reckoned with – but to see Mr Swainbank doing as he was told, so meek and mild – well, it took her breath away!

Charles looked hard at Ma. She had changed greatly. His early recollections were dim, just a glimpse from a carriage, a shock of near-black hair, a pale Irish skin and, on closer inspection, piercing blue eyes. He remembered his own father’s excitement whenever he caught sight of Ma Maguire, the quickening of hooves, a mad dash on foot through the market sometimes. Yes, Ma had remained a handsome woman right up to Father’s death. She’d been a big girl, very tall, especially for one of her generation. Now she seemed shrivelled, as if her body had shrunk while the skin had remained the same size, rather wrinkled and sad like a punctured balloon. That famous dark hair of which she had reputedly been so proud was reduced to a few wisps of grey scraped tightly against her skull. But the eyes were the same, twin blue flames that crackled with life and energy. ‘You’ve been ill, Ma. I’m sorry about that – are you better?’

She attempted to straighten the rounded spine. ‘Improving, thank you. Sit yourself down, for I’m not going to strain meself looking up to you all the while.’

They sat down simultaneously, Charles allowing himself a tight smile. She’d look up to nobody if he remembered correctly. ‘Well – what’s wrong?’ he ventured, half knowing the answer before it arrived.

Ma drew her chair closer so that their voices might be confined. ‘You walk in here bold as brass and ask me what’s wrong? I believe my daughter-in-law has already told you how we feel – it’s clear enough the poor girl had little effect! I warn you now, Charles Swainbank – this may be your house, but it’s our home. As long as we keep it decent enough and pay our rent, you have no right to interfere in this place!’

‘I came to look at the alterations—’

‘In a pig’s eye, you did! Why spend all that money on the one street, a street you’ve never owned, a street not worth the owning? Why go out and buy a row of decaying houses, then throw away a fortune on buildings that will doubtless tumble to the wreckers inside fifty years?’ She glowered at him. ‘Well?’

‘You know the answer. For the same reason my father wrote poems to a woman who would not cross a road to speak to him!’

She laughed mirthlessly. ‘For love, is it?’

‘Love, hopelessness – what’s the difference?’

This stopped her momentarily. Was he comparing Richard’s hopeless love for her to this very different situation? ‘Rubbish! You’re doing this for a pair of babbies you took care never to clap eyes on! Aye, twins that should never have lived. I bet if Molly had agreed to abortion—’

‘No! There was no question – ever—’

‘Keep your voice down,’ she hissed. ‘There was no question because there was no necessity for knitting needles and gin! I saw to that!’

His mouth twitched angrily. ‘Yes, you saw to everything, didn’t you? I’d have looked after her! If she’d come to me in the first place—’

‘She didn’t need you! We don’t need you! Look. You know I was . . . fond of your father. Yet in him I saw . . . what’s the word now? Qualities, that’s it. I saw in Richard qualities from centuries before. Bad stock, evil line – it all comes out—’

‘Then it’s in the twins too?’

She gritted her teeth. ‘Don’t twist my words! They’ve been reared apart!’ Her mind cast itself back over Joey’s misdeeds before she continued, ‘The Swainbanks have a history that’s unclean. People were left crying in the streets because of your lot, thrown into the gutters, they were, for resting on a wall between jobs! And that still went on in your father’s time!’

Charles opened his mouth to reply, but she held up a hand. ‘No! I will have my say! Long ago, before I became a weaver, I worked as a spinner in one of your mills. Almost up to Patrick’s birth I worked, bent double just to make ends meet in more ways than one. Served some time as a side-piecer, I did – and backbreaking labour it was too! When I got my own mules, I watched a little-piecer lifted and thrown across a room when a belt flew loose. Fingers were swept up at night, thrown away as just a bit more waste. I have seen children at death’s door from blood-poisoning brought on by filth and grease. Remember? How they toiled barefoot and in a little work-shirt, sliding in thick oil all over the place? Infants, they were – babes in arms—’

‘They were not babies! And everyone employed them!’

‘Ah, so it’s accuracy you’re after! In my time they were twelve years old, some of them weighing three or four stones for lack of nourishment. A six o’clock start to a midday finish, then off to school to be beaten half to death for collapsing at their desks! I have talked to and worked with some of these victims! Victims of your father and others like him.’

‘And you blame me for that?’

She looked down at her hands. ‘Not quite, not entirely. But I blame you for displaying that same coldness now in coming here to inspect my grandchildren.’

He cleared his throat. ‘They’re not your grandchildren, Ma.’

She jumped to her feet and brought her hand viciously across his face, delivering a slap that seemed to echo through the whole house. ‘Remember the last time I did that? And your father too? There you stood, not a word to say for yourself, not while the old man lived. But now you have it all, don’t you? The power, the weight, the so-called wisdom! Never dare say to me that those are not my grandchildren! Never! Who nurtured them and saw them through the night with croup and scarlet fever? Where were you when we thought Janet had the diphtheria? More to the point, where was her real so-called grandmother, that nasty piece of work you called Mother? Well?’

His face glowed where she had struck him, but he remained where he was, feeling as if he were doing penance not just for his own mistakes, but also for the undeniable sins of his predecessors.

She sat down again. ‘You and your kind – I spit on you! You never look upon what you don’t want to see. But I’ve seen it all, lad! One filthy sink in a corner, all clogged up with grease and cotton waste – that’s where you washed and dressed a hand when the mule trapped fingers. Children running with wipers to clean as a mule opened, fleeing for their lives to get out again in time! Grown women weeping because they were refused a new broom to sweep the floor while the old one still had two or three bristles on its head. Were you there? Did you learn all that?’

The chair creaked as she leaned nearer to him. ‘There’s no love lost, Charlie, no love at all for you here. You’re not one of us. Did you ever get a clout off a minder for breaking ends while you cleaned a machine that threatened to kill you? Did you ever have to beg for wages because there was no pay however good a job you made? Aye. You remember don’t you? Piecers were paid by the spinner out of his own wages. And a spinner was rightly called a minder, for he kept many a child alive out of his own pitiful sum. Were you there when a good minder brought in a flour cake and a slice of ham to save the life of a thirteen-year-old little-piecer with legs bent by rickets? No. You know nothing! You were too busy sitting in the whited sepulchre counting the takings! Your fine cars and carriages, your house and all its trappings – everything you own was bought and paid for with blood. Our blood.’ She beat a closed fist against her breast. ‘You cannot ever belong with us, just as we cannot ever belong with you.’

‘All the cruelties you speak of are out of the past! Surely you can see that things are improving all the time . . .’