Pure as the Lily (28 page)

She would heed his warning; he had made her sensible where money was concerned. Then there were the shops. The property was theirs hers now, besides the six houses and the cottage, Moat Cottage.

But she knew what she was going to do with the cottage. The day Jimmy and Lally went in there she was going to hand him the deeds. It would be a surprise, a nice surprise, and it would give him a feeling of security and add a final touch to his happiness.

At times lately she had felt a bit green about Jimmy’s happiness. He was going around like a tall beacon light, shining with it. He had been right, Lally had been what he needed. And Lally herself, nobody could help liking Lally. She was big, naive and lovable, and she was someone who had to be cared for, and directed, and Jimmy had never had anyone to direct, or prove himself master of, he had been bullied, dominated and mastered all his life.

During the last year she had watched her brother become a man. The dreaminess had gone, and since the baim had been born . well, anybody would think that it was the first baby that had been delivered into the world. But then it was Lally’s first baby.

It was odd how things had gone for him since he had taken the final step away from her ma and Betty.

He had got a job as orderly in the Infirmary, and he had not only endeared himself to most of the staff with whom he worked, but had managed to bring the interest of the doctors to bear on Lally owing to her three previous miscarriages; in consequence she’d had the best of care and had been admitted to hospital during the latter part of her pregnancy. She’d had to

have a caesarean in the end and it was doubtful it she’d ever have another child. But that didn’t matter, she’d given him a son, and he had called it Ben.

She had been very touched that Jimmy had called the child Ben and so, in order that his son could be brought up in decent surroundings, away from the scum of the streets and the back lanes, she had suggested to him that if he put in some spa retime work on the cottage, with what old bomb—site timber he could get his hands on, and decorate it, even if only with battleship grey paint, then they could move in there. His delight had been so great that you would have thought she was offering him Buckingham Palace.

Yes, she was glad, happy that things were going well for Jimmy, even if his doting attitude towards Lally was a little too much at times.

As she went quietly from the bedroom she saw her daughter hastily push a bag of sweets into her coat pocket and gulp at the one in her mouth, and she called, “Annie!”

“Yes, Ma.” Annie’s expression was surly.

“I thought you were going to give your rations in for the Victory tea?”

“Well, I am; I did.”

“What’s those you put in your pocket?” She went towards her and drew from her pocket a bag holding about six ounces of toffees, and she put her head on one side and surveyed her daughter, and Annie surveyed her in return and said, “Ma, you’re niggardly.”

Yes, she supposed she was niggardly. Who else in her position would deprive her daughter of a few sweets? What was the matter with her anyway? She handed the bag back to Annie, but asked, “Who gave them to you? Teresa or your gran da

The gran da

“Go on.” She pushed her, and she smiled wryly as she watched the child flounce down the stairs. Her da would have done the same for her years ago.

A few minutes later she entered the back shop. Alee was

14 2 9

weighing up sugar at a side table, while he hummed to himself the song that had been his father’s favourite, the song that got on her nerves, the song that in a way she took as a reproach to herself:

“I love a lassie, A bonny, bonny lassie.

She’s as pure as the lily in the dell.

She’s as sweet as the heather, The bonny purple heather, Mary me Scotch bluebell. “ There were times when she wanted to scream at him, “Oh Da! for God’s sake change that tune.” She recalled once when they were walking along the cinder path, his arm about her shoulders, and he was singing—someone had stood him a few pints that day—and he looked down into her face as he sang the line:

“She’s as pure as the lily in the dell.”

Lately she had thought that perhaps even without her ma agitating him he would still have beaten up Ben. Looking at him, now, small, stooped, quiet, inoffensive, a prematurely aged man, who would think that he had ever been capable of acting as he had done?

Since she had given him the job of weighing the dry goods and packing up orders she had seen glimpses in him of his former self, especially on the nights when Jimmy and Lally came round. Then he would sit with Annie between his knees and talk, and even chaff. And she knew that in these moments he was happy; he had his family around him as he had never hoped to have, and never had in their young days.

What hurt her most with regard to him was his subservient manner towards herself; it was always, Tes, Mary. Aye, Mary. Yes, I’ll do

that, Mary. “ It made her the boss, and somehow she didn’t want to be the boss. The boss of him, and Annie, and Cousin Annie and Jimmy, and Lally. Yet they all looked to her as the boss. She didn’t want to be their boss, anybody’s boss ... not even Arthur’s in the Charter Street shop, or Teresa’s in this one.

She wanted to get away on her own.

Alee said, “How’s that?” He pointed to the row of sugar bags, and she said, “Fine. Fine, Da. Go on up now, I’ve made your cocoa.”

“Oh ta, Mary; I could do with that. Is there anything else you want specially doin’ when I come back?”

“Well, you could start on the tat ties Do them up in quarter stones.”

“Aye, aye, I will Mary. I won’t be a minute.”

“Take your time.” Her voice was impatient. Then she looked at him gently and smiled.

“There’s no hurry, take your time, Da.”

“Aye, lass, aye. All right.” As he went out she sighed, and put her hand to her head; then she was walking towards the shop door when Teresa came through it, saying hurriedly, “There’s a man in the shop wantin’ to have a word with you.”

Without speaking, Mary followed her back into the shop and there, at the other side of the counter, standing among a number of women customers, all from around the doors, was Hughie Amesden.

“Good morning, Mrs. Tollett.”

“Good morning, Mr. Amesden.”

When he looked from one side to the other she said, “You would like a word with me, Mr. Amesden?” Tes, Mrs. Tollett. “

“Will you come through then?”

She ignored the looks of the women and lifted the hatch and allowed him to pass in front of her and into the storeroom.

They stood looking at each other for a moment. He had his hat in his hand. It was a soft trilby. She had noticed that

he never wore a cap, and this sort of made him stand out from the other men about the place. He pulled the rim of the trilby between his fingers and thumb as he said, “I ... I just wanted to say goodbye to you.”

“Goodbye? You’re going away?”

“Yes.” He nodded.

“The first stage is Southampton. We’re leaving the morrow, and, and then America.”

“America?” She bowed her head towards him.

“Yes, you see my wife’s got an aunt over there. Her son came over here during the war and he married an English lass. They live in Southampton. He’s billeted there. Well, the long and short of it is me wife can’t settle here; she’s crazy to get away since we lost our girl, you understand?” She moved her head again.

“And her cousin’s going to see about getting us a passage. We might have to wait a bit but Rene, that’s my wife, thinks that if we’re on the spot we’ll have a better chance.”

“America, it’s a long way.”

“Yes, it’s a long way.”

“Are you looking forward to it?”

He looked into her face for a full minute before he said, “No. But you know how it is.” She nodded again, but she didn’t know how it was. She wouldn’t know until she, too, was able to say to someone, “I’m going away, I’m going to America.”

He was twisting his hat around in his hands now as he said with a half smile, “It’s funny. We haven’t met often during the years although we were brought up together ... well, quite near each other. But I thought, well, I thought I would let you know I’m going, just to say ta-rah.”

“It was very kind of you, Mr. Amesden, and I wish you all the luck in the world.” He didn’t answer, and they continued to stare at each other until the silence became so great, so heavy, that she felt herself going red in the face, and she searched frantically in her mind for something to say.

And what she said was, “You’ll be glad to get away. It’s, it’s depressing here.”

“No. No’—he shook his head vigorously “ “it isn’t that I find it depressing. Well, not more so than any other place during the war.

Black-outs and everything you know, places don’t have a lot of effect on me, it’s people. “ How true, how true. She said aloud, “Yes, you’re right, Mr. Amesden.

Places don’t matter all that much, it’s the people. “

The back door opened and Alee entered and they both turned and looked at him with blank faces, and he said, “Oh.”

“This is Mr. Amesden, Da. He’s going to America.”

“Oh aye.” Alee put his head back and looked up at the tall man.

“I

wish you luck, lad. “ He put out his hand. Hughie took it and they shook hands gravely.

He now turned to Mary with his hand extended, and she placed hers in it. It was the first time they had touched. His hands felt big, warm, firm.

“Well, I’ll say goodbye then, Mrs. Tollett.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Amesden. I hope you get on well.”

“I hope so.”

“If ... if you ever come on a holiday you must look us up.”

“I will, Mrs. Tollett, I certainly will.” He still had hold of her hand, and when he dropped it he stood for a second longer looking at her, then turned away and went towards the door that led into the shop. She did not follow him to show him out but turned towards the back door as Alee said, “He seems a nice chap. I seem to know his face. Is he from around these parts?”

“Yes,” said Mary.

“Yes, he’s from around these parts.”

When she got upstairs Cousin Annie put her head out of the kitchen and asked. Do you want turnips done with the tat ties to mash like? “ and she looked at her and said, “ What? Oh yes. Yes, that’ll be all right, Annie. “ Then she went into the bedroom and, sitting on the side of the bed, she looked at the photo of Ben and bowed her head. What was wrong with her? What was up with her anyway? She had the feeling on her that she had just sustained another great loss.

‘come on, love, and sit down and get this toast. “ Jimmy pulled Lally down into a chair by the side of the table; then, pointing to the fire, he said, “ That’s a blaze for you, isn’t it? And there’s enough rotten bits outside there to keep us going for a month. By! I was lucky to get that load. Arthur Stanhope, he’s in the boiler house, you know, he’s going to put me on to another lot. His brother’s on cleaning the bomb sites, that’s how he gets the tip-off. A couple of bob on the side’—he nudged her with his elbow—’and we’re set. “

He looked around the room, his face bright. Then he said, “Isn’t it marvelous! Ours. Fancy our Mary giving it to us! Just fancy. I still can’t believe it, not even yet. By! she’s good.”

“She’s wonderful is Mary.” Lally looked down into her cup, then stirred it slowly before she said though fully “You know, Jimmy, most women are bitches. Oh, they are.” She looked at him and nodded as if he had denied this.

“But when you get a nice one it makes up for all the rest.” He put his hand across the table and gripped hers, and he said quietly, “You’re telling me that. To me there are only two good women in the world, you and our Mary.”

“Aw, Jimmy.” She looked at him with her big limpid blue eyes for a moment; then pulling her hand away from him and sitting up straight she said, as if coming to a grave decision, “I’m not goin’ to dress so flashy, I’m goin’ to pick quiet things.”

Jimmy let out a roar of laughter, leant back in his chair and almost did a back somersault. Gripping on the table, the tears running down his face, he said, “Lally! you’re priceless.” And she was priceless to him. He’d had a year of such happiness that it was impossible to imagine. He had never dreamed that any human being could hold so many beautiful emotions in his body at one and the same time. Why, why did he love her as he did? According to modern educational standards she was, as she said, dim, at least dim about some things, but on others so unconsciously profound that she astounded him. At such times he felt that there was a door in her mind that had something behind it stopping it opening, and that once that door could be forced back he would have, in his Lally, a sage.

But did he want a sage? No, he just wanted her as she was, he never wanted her any different, because as she was she had made a man of him. And her need of him, her love of him, would go on keeping him a man.

During the past year he had done so many things he never thought he’d be capable of. He had used his hands. Just look what he had done to the place at odd times during the last six months? He had made cupboards; he had boarded in the old-fashioned sink; he had sanded all the grease and dirt off the great stone slabs of this kitchen; he had reinforced the stairs; he had even built Lally a kind of dressing-table in the queer little niche in the bedroom up above, and now that the authorities were allowing a pound’s worth of new wood a month for reconstruction, there was nothing he wouldn’t be able to do during the next year or two. Among that great pile of charred and oiled wood outside the door there were two large beams he was going to preserve he already had an idea what he was going to do with them.

The front room was eighteen feet long and still held that old fashioned iron fireplace. Well, as soon as he could get down to it he was going to have that out and put one of these beams across the top and make an open fireplace. He had seen the picture in a magazine, seventeenth-century style. Oh, the ideas he had in his head. And then the garden, back and front; he’d have that all dug before the winter and designed. He’d make a sand pit for Ben at the back, and when he could get his hands on some cement he’d make him a little pool. He’d bring South Shields