Pure as the Lily (39 page)

“Oh!” I y: } “Surprised? shocked?”

t :, ; “Surprised, shocked, me? No, no, not if you’re going to I ^?

marry Pat, I’m not. “

| i;: His eyebrows went up, his face stretched.

“You’re not?” | t “No, she’s been bats about you all her life, well, since she was about five.”

“Oh Mam!” He leant forward and put his hands on her shoulders, and she said, “Hie up! this tea will be over me afore you’re finished this morning.”

“I’ve been bats about her for years an’ all.”

“Have you, lad?” Yes; I suppose you knew that too? “

“Well, honestly no, no, I didn’t. And honestly again, I didn’t really know how things stood with her until last Friday night when ... when I saw her looking at you I must have been blind afore. And then, of course, when you hit her... well I knew for certain your side of it an’ all.” He took the cup from her hand, put it on the side table and hugged her.

We’re going to be married next week. “ ‘next week! Aw now, here, here.”

“Never mind, here, here, Mam, I’m getting a special licence.”

“A special licence!”

“A special licence, that’s what I said. Have you got a deaf ear too?”

“And ... and the University, her career?”

“Her career is ended, that career anyway. She doesn’t want it, Mam.

What she wants, well, she wants the same as me, a home and a family.

That’s all we both want, a home and a family. And, of course, you.

You’ll come along with us. “

‘not . on . your . life! She pushed him roughly.

“Now let’s get this straight, lad. You can do everything you want, both of you, but don’t try to settle my life.”

“Well, where do you think you’re going to go? You know, Granda’s on his last legs, and you don’t think we’re going to let you live alone.

You’ve looked after one and another for years and years; you’ve been at the beck and call of everybody. “

“Look, Ben, please.” She pointed stiffly at him.

“As you say for years I’ve been at the beck and call of everybody, an’ that’s true. For years ‘n years ‘n years I’ve felt encumbered. That’s the word, encumbered. Now, when you’re settled, and when me da goes I’ll be free. And that’s the word, that is the word, free. Don’t you understand?” He drew his head further back and looked at her through narrowed gaze, then he said quietly, ‘you felt like this for long? “

“As I said, years and years “ And I’ve been one of the encumbrances? “

“No, no, not you. Ben, you least of all. I could have done what I wanted to do with you alone, you know, get about, go abroad. No, lad’ —she leant towards him now and took his hand ‘never you.

You’ve been not my nephew, you’ve been like my own child; and you know that, don’t you?” He hitched himself up the bed and took her in his arms, and for a moment he said thickly, “But I’ll be worried about

you; I couldn’t help being worried about you if you were on your,” Again she pushed him away, but gently now, saying, “I’m II j ; not that old, fifty-five. I’m going to get about, see life. And | i I’ll come and stay with you, I might even take a house near, ? ,: just so’s you can park the hairns on me.”

I “Aw Mam!”

$: ;:; She looked at him steadily now, and her voice held a deep and serious note as she said, “I’m happy for you, Ben. It’s like a weight off me shoulders knowing you’re going to be settled. How would you like to take a bit of good advice?”

I , “Always from you, Mam.”

j. “Well, get it over and done with before you tell our Annie or Tom, because, well, I know my own daughter and she’ll find some way of putting a spoke in the wheel. She had big things planned for Pat and a mechanic didn’t come into them, even the owner of a garage as he is now.” She patted his cheek.

“Annie always had her eye on the scholastic world. Mrs. Patricia Blank, wife of Professor Blank, that’s what she had in mind. Although she never said it, that’s what she intended for her. Oh, I know my Annie. But anyway, see what Pat says.”

“I think she’ll agree, Mam. Oh, I know she will.”

“Good. Good. Now leave me be. I’ve got some thinking of me own to do, you understand?”

“I understand.”

It was ten o’clock the same morning when Mary entered the small lobby leading to the geriatric ward.

The young nurse at the desk looked up and said, Yes, can I help you? “ and Mary had to wet her lips twice before she could bring out the words “ I’ve come to see Mrs. Walton, Mrs. Alice Walton. “ The girl looked at her, then down at the ledger on her desk before saying, “Will you take a seat, please?”

Mary didn’t take a seat but she watched the young nurse come from behind the desk and go towards the door at the beginning of the corridor and, as she was about to knock, the door opened. She watched her step inside and heard her voice low and distinct say, “It’s Mrs.

Walton’s daughter, she’s come.” Then another voice, equally low but clear, answering, Oh! has she? “ The woman who came out into the corridor and looked at Mary was evidently the sister in charge, and when their eyes met there arose between them an instant and mutual dislike. The sister was seeing ‘a well dressed woman, one of those who get on and leave their folks to rot in loneliness’, and Mary was reading her thoughts as clearly as if they had been written on a blackboard behind her.

“Good morning.” The voice was icy.

“Good morning. I’ve... I’ve come to see Mrs. Walton.* oh.” The sister now looked towards the desk and to the young nurse and said, “Wasn’t it Thursday the information was sent out?” Yes, Sister. “

The woman was looking straight into Mary’s face now. Thursday it was,” she said.

Yes, I know, but. but I haven’t been able to get here before now. “

“Well, that’s a pity because Mrs. Walton died at seven o’clock last night.”

“Yes, she died last night. She’s been here six years, you know, and has never had a visitor.” Their eyes were holding hard, and Mary’s lips became tight as the sister went on, “She had been living in one room for years fending for herself, and partly paralysed at that. Poor old soul. Then six years here without one visitor to see her. So you’ve come too late....” Mary hadn’t felt rage rising in her for many a year, but now it was almost choking her. This woman was taking the place of God, condemning her. She heard her saying now, Do you wish to make the final arrangements? “

No, I don’t! “ Her voice startled both the sister and the nurse.

“I’ll leave you to canyon with your self-righteousness.”

“Self-righteousness! What do you mean? If you mean humanitarian....”

“Humanitarian be damned! What do you know about it?” Mary was almost spitting the words at her now. Did you find Mrs. Alice Walton a sweet character to deal with? Did you? “ t As the sister wagged her head slightly and pursed her lips, t—Mary cried at her, “No, you didn’t!

Well, neither did I. My mother. God forgive her, was the means of destroying a number of lives.

Through her, my husband was horribly disfigured. She disfigured him for life, but what was more’—she now bent from the waist towards the sister’ she burned her daughter-in-law to death, and drove her son almost insane and at last to his grave through drink. Go on. You carry on with your humanitarian principles, they make you feel nice, comfortable, and so very good, don’t they? You should have had the dear old soul to live with in her fighting days, that would have tested your humanitarianism.” For one moment longer she glared at the sister, then she turned and stalked from the lobby, leaving both the sister and the nurse ‘^j gaping after her.

As she drove back home her rage gradually subsided, washed away on a flood of tears that almost proved disastrous to her driving.

When she arrived Ben and Pat met her at the top of the stairs, and when their arms came out to her she thrust them off, saying, “Leave me be for a while. Leave me be,” and pushed blindly past them into her room. And there, throwing herself on to her bed, she sobbed as she hadn’t done since Jimmy died.

“Eeh! lass, I can’t understand it. I feel so grand, I feel I’ve had a new lease of life. Now you’ll let me get up the morrow, won’t you? I could have got up the day ‘cos I’ve never felt better in me life, it’s just as if I’d gone back forty years, aye, forty years.”

Mary was not fanciful, but it was strange, she thought,

that her da had had this feeling from around seven o’clock last night, just about the time they said her mother had gone. And he was looking sprightly; she had not seen him looking like this, not for years.

Nor had his manner been so lively. Could it be that her mother, who was an evil woman she would never think of her as otherwise—had weighed on him all these years? They said there was power in thought; but then it would have touched herself wouldn’t it, because her ma had hated her more than she had her da, she was sure of that. But she had been strong inside, she would have warded off any evil her mother had sent in her direction; her da had lain under it. It might all be fancy, but there he was before her eyes looking younger and talking with a lightness that did her heart good. It could be that he would get on his feet again and enjoy these last years of his life. She hoped so.

Oh, she hoped so. In spite of wanting her own release, she hoped so with all her heart.

There was the sound of a thud from the direction of either the dining-room or sitting-room and Alee looked at her and laughed and said, CWhat’s that? Somebody emptying a load of coal upstairs? “ She laughed at him and, tapping his hand, said, “Some—thin’s fallen; I’ll go and see. “

Nothing had fallen in the dining-room, but when she opened the sitting-room door she saw what had fallen. There on the floor were Ben and Pat all twisted up together.

Well, I never! “ she said. Did you make that thud?”

“Ma ... Mam’—Ben was laughing as he spluttered ‘she threw me, she’s thrown me!” Don’t be silly. Get yourselves up. “

“I... I can’t, Mam.”

Tat! Leave go of him. “

When they were both on their feet and laughing like two children, she looked at them and said, ‘you didn’t really throw him, Pat? “

“Course I did. Gran, watch.”

“Oh my God!” She sprang back as she saw her nephew, her

big, strong, blond nephew going head over heels, or legs over head was more like it, on to his back.

“There, Gran.” Pat dusted her hands; “That’s a demonstration of a hip throw. Now I’ll show you a rear loin.”

“No, you don’t.” Ben was pushing her away.

“No!” Then coming at her, he cried, “This is the only way I’ll be able to stop her, Mam.” And he pinned her to him with his arms. When, the next moment, his feet again left the ground he yelled in protest, and again they were both on the floor laughing, with Mary standing looking down at them with a straight face and saying, “It isn’t seemly, Pat.”

“I agree with you, Gran.”

From his prone position Ben spluttered. Don’t you worry Mam. I’m going to do something about it and right away. There’s one thing I’ve learned; every move she makes can be | ? countered, and I’ll learn to counter them or die in the at—sK tempt. “

K,; “And you’re likely to. Get yourselves up, the pair of you, lA and listen.... Oh’—she stopped and slapped at Pat “ I can’t t believe it. Just look at you, as straight as a drain pipe and able y’ to topple him.

“ f}1:; The term is throw him. Gran.” ‘ll Throw or topple whatever, it’s not right, it’s unseemly, | ^

‘tisn’t. “

“Womanly, Gran?” Patricia put her arms round Mary’s shoulders. That’s the word you want, isn’t it, womanly. Well, that’s how I feel about it too. But oh, it gives you a nice feeling on a dark night going up an alley. “

When they stopped laughing she said to them, “Listen for a moment.

Your gran dad had a new lease of life. I just can’t understand it after what the doctor said. Anyway, I’ll get him up the morrow. “

The following morning when she went into her da with his early cup of tea the cup slowly tilted in her hand. Alee was lying on his back.

There was a smile on his face and under his hand on the counterpane was a small framed snapshot of herself taken on the Shields sands when she was about six years old.

He had started on his last long trip.

an official had come to her and asked if she wished to make any arrangements about her mother’s funeral and she had answered no.

“None whatever?” he had said, and she had answered again, in his own words, “None whatever.” She felt now it had been a mistake going to the hospital. She knew that her conscience had no need to be troubled;

the religious ones would say it was hardness of heart, if God could forgive why not her? But she wasn’t God. People were stupid who expected you to act like God. Yet she knew that there were men and women who had been tortured by the Japanese, and who had survived and yet held no grudge against their torturers. She knew there were Jews who had suffered under the Germans as no human being or animal should be made to suffer, and who afterwards held no bitterness in their hearts. But, on the other hand, she knew of those who had gone insane through the memories of what they and their people had suffered. And there were still people who could not sleep at night because of their memories. But the horrors these people had suffered had taken place during war time. The evil in men erupted during war time, and there was a licence allowed for a certain amount of cruelty at such times; but her mother’s cruelty had not been occasioned by war, hers had been bred of personal revenge. No, she was going to be no hypocrite. She was not going to manufacture forgiveness to lay as a salve on her conscience because of fear. They buried Alee on the Thursday. Apart from Ben and Patricia, there were only Annie and Tom and a few neighbours present. As the pall-bearers carried the coffin towards the grave she followed with Ben’s hand on her arm, and as she walked she was aware that, parallel with them, on a side path four men were carrying another coffin, and she knew without doubt that that coffin bore her mother. She had to fight the feeling of oppression that flooded over her. And when she stood by the side of the open grave and watched her da being lowered into it, if she prayed she prayed that there would be no coming together in the great hereafter; her da had died smiling and she wanted him to go on smiling.