Christmas Eve
Mary Ellen hummed softly . . . it was many, many Christmases ago that she felt as happy as she did now. The morrow was Christmas Eve and she was really looking forward to it. She worked at the table in the middle of the kitchen, cutting out pastry for mince pies. Above her head hung a large, honeycombed paper ball, suspended from the paper chains crisscrossed under the ceiling. The kitchen was quiet and warm with an unusual air of cosiness about it. As she worked she planned for the morrow. She’d get up earlier than usual and blacklead the stove before lighting the fire; and then, after she’d got them all off to work, she’d get done and put everything shipshape; then she’d get the dinner ready, and have the afternoon clear . . . to go and get the coat.
Aye, it was a long time since she’d had a coat, a new shawl would have done her; but no, John had a bee in his bonnet, and she was to have a coat for Christmas . . . What had come over him lately? He was the same lad to her, yet somehow he was altered. It wasn’t only the new suit he had, although that made him look fine; no, it was in some other way he’d altered. Well, never mind, he was still her lad, and the best on God’s earth. If only the other one was like him.
The thought of Dominic caused her to stop humming. Why hadn’t he gone away, as he’d been hinting of doing for some weeks past? Then Christmas would have indeed been grand. She knew he had been enquiring after jobs in both the Liverpool and London Docks; anywhere, he had said, to get away from this hole.
When she came to think of it, Dominic too seemed changed. It was all that lass next door she supposed—he was set on her; but he didn’t seem to be making much headway. Was John his stumbling block? This was another thing which puzzled her. John was always in next door, and often she heard his laugh joined with that of the girl’s. But there it seemed to end. If he were courting her, he was doing it in a funny way; for he never took her out. Pray God he wouldn’t either. No, no, that would be terrible if John really took up with her. Well, she wasn’t going to think about it; she was going to enjoy this Christmas. She already had a piece of brisket and an aitchbone, and if John went down to the market last thing the morrow he might pick up a duck or something cheap. They sold them off for next to nothing rather than have them left on their hands. By, it’d be grand if he could get a duck! And on Christmas Day they’d have Christmas cake and the rice loaf she’d made. Nobody knew yet, but she was going to put icing on the cake. By, they’d have a grand do.
A tap on the door broke in on her thoughts and she called, ‘Come in,’ and Peggy Flaherty, after kicking her boots against the wall, stumbled into the kitchen.
‘Oh God above, it’s enough to freeze your liver! It’s at it again, Mary Ellen—won’t be able to stir hand or foot outside the door shortly.’
‘It hasn’t started to snow again, surely?’
‘It has so, Mary Ellen. As if it wasn’t bad enough with everywhere frozen solid. God’s truth, I’ve never seen anything like it! We’ll have to be after watching the tap in the yard, Mary Ellen, or it’ll be a dry Christmas in one way we’ll be having. Oh, ye’re lovely and warm in here, lass’—she wriggled her fat inside her many coats—‘and the smell’s good enough to eat. And did ye ever see such a picture of a kitchen, with all those bonny chains!’
‘Sit down and warm yourself, and have a pie,’ said Mary Ellen.
‘I will an’ all, for I’m chilled to the bone. I’m just back from Shields. Look’—she pulled three small packages from her bass bag—‘some bits of things for the bairns’ stockings.’
‘Now, Peggy’—Mary Ellen compressed her lips—‘that’s madness, that is! You know you haven’t got it to go and buy presents.’
‘Why haven’t I then? I haven’t got a bite of sup to buy for Christmas or Boxing Day, because out of the goodness of your heart ye’ve asked me down . . . so why haven’t I? There they are’—she laid the packages on the mantelpiece—‘we’ll say no more about them. There’s only one thing I regret, and that is I haven’t got it to buy you all something. But business isn’t what it used to be; divil the pennorth of advice I’ve given out this past three weeks. What’s the matter with people, Mary Ellen? ’Tisn’t as if there were no rows; God alive, they followed each other like flies down at the bottom end last week? If it wasn’t for running me clubs I’d be hard set at times; but as long as I get my rent I’m all right. And God’s good. There was last weekend I didn’t know which way I was going to turn, when, coming up the yard, that blessed lad of yours slipped me sixpence. By, Mary Ellen, I think if ye lost everything in the world and ye’d only him left, ye’d get by . . . Is he courting, Mary Ellen?’
‘Courting?’ Mary Ellen turned and with a blank face looked at Peggy. ‘Not that I know of. Why do you ask?’
‘Only I’ve seen him a number of times, three to be exact, and the last no later than this dinner-time, talking to the same lass. And a bonnier piece I’ve never seen. And mark ye, she wasn’t from around these doors either. Today she had a fur coat on, and the tails hanging from the collar alone must have left a number of poor animals feeling cold around their backsides.’
‘The same. Tall she was, and strapping looking. And a voice like the gentry, for I heard her as I passed. And it’s me that knows how the gentry talk—ye know that, Mary Ellen—for Mr Flaherty spent his life rubbing shoulders with them. And it’s the same process, ye know: as ye can’t touch pitch without becoming defiled, so ye can’t mix among the gentry without picking up their lingo.’
Mary Ellen surveyed Peggy. ‘You must have made a mistake.’
‘Not a bit of it, Mary Ellen. John called out to me himself. “Hallo there, Peggy,” he said, as true as I’m sitting here.’
Mary Ellen turned back to her baking board . . . John talking to a lass with a fur coat on. Who could it be? And three times. He wasn’t a one to stand talking to lasses at any time, only that one next door. She turned to Peggy again: ‘It wasn’t—’ she nodded her head towards the fireplace.
‘No. I may be short in the sight, but I’m not that bad. This was a big lump of a lass, in fact she was a woman; and twice the size of that scrag end next door, bless ye.’
Mary Ellen could question Peggy no more at the moment, for there was another knock on the door; it was Hannah Kelly.
She had a coat over her head, and she shook the soft snow off it before coming into the kitchen. ‘What weather! The only ones enjoying it are the bairns. Hallo, Peggy. Is this where ye are? By! they smell good Mary Ellen.’ Hannah nodded towards the pies.
‘Help yourself, lass,’ said Mary Ellen.
‘Not now. Thanks all the same. I only came over to see you a minute . . . about something.’
Peggy, taking the covered hint with the abundance of her good nature, said, ‘I’ll off up, Mary Ellen, for I must make a start; I’m up to the eyes upstairs.’
‘She never said a truer word,’ said Hannah, when Peggy had gone. ‘How she lives among that junk, God alone knows. I came over to tell ye about our Nancy, Mary Ellen; but I couldn’t do it with her sitting there—she’d be offering me advice, and I’m not in the mood to take Peggy’s advice the day.’
‘Is anything wrong, Hannah?’
‘It looks like it; I’ve had a letter from Mrs Fitzsimmons about her. She says she’s getting more queer every day, and she’s getting that way she won’t work; she just stands staring at her and says she can’t. Ye know, Mary Ellen, that isn’t like Nancy. As bad as she is she can do the rough work of half a dozen. Mrs Fitzsimmons says I’ll have to bring her home if it keeps on . . . Oh, Mary Ellen, there’ll be hell to pay again with our Joe if she’s in the house all the time.’
‘I’m sorry, lass. But perhaps you’ll get her in some place else.’
‘Not if she won’t work. Ye don’t mind me coming across and telling ye, Mary Ellen? Ye’ve got enough on your plate, I know, without my troubles stacked on top, but ye’re the only one I seem to be able to talk to about her.’
‘Why, lass, I only wish I could help you.’
Hannah sat down by the side of the fire and stared into the glowing coals for a moment. ‘It’s an awful thing, Mary Ellen, to know that a bairn ye’ve given birth to isn’t all there.’
Mary placed her hand on Hannah’s shoulder. ‘We all have our loads, lass; if it isn’t one thing it’s another.’
Hannah gnawed at her lower lip. ‘You and John are the only two who treat her like a human being. I know I don’t. Sometimes I can’t stand the sight of her. Oh, ye don’t know, Mary Ellen, it’s awful. But then, when I hear Joe going for her, I get a sort of feeling and want to protect her somehow.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Well, the only thing I hope is she doesn’t come home till after the new year. Joe’s banking on a little bit of a do on New Year’s Eve, but it’ll be knocked completely on the head if she’s home; he’ll do nothing then; likely stay out most of the time.’
‘She’ll be all right,’ Mary Ellen persisted, ‘don’t worry. Look, let’s have a cup of tea.’
Mary Ellen bustled about making tea. In the face of the tragedy of having a partly imbecile daughter her load seemed very light. She had poverty and drink to put up with, but not that, thank God. Hers were all right up there.
The two women drank their tea and talked on . . . about Bella now. Hannah wasn’t speaking to Bella, for whenever she did Bella made some excuse to come downstairs and ferret out her business. And Bella’s constant presence in the house maddened Joe. Mary Ellen could well understand this, for she had no use for Bella Bradley, who was never happy unless someone else was in trouble . . .
As the snow thickened and the light vanished earlier than usual the kitchen was lit only by the glow of the fire—through necessity the gas was never lit until it was almost impossible to see, and Mary Ellen worked on, after Hannah had gone, more by feel than anything else. She began to sing softly to herself—her mother and grandmother had sung the song before her—the simple words expressing the tragedy of at least one phase of their love:
Love, it is teasing,
Love, it is pleasing,
Love is a pleasure when it is new;
But as it grows older and the days grow colder
It fades away like the morning dew.
Mary Ellen wasn’t thinking of the words, or how they applied to her own life, but that she had much for which to be thankful: Shane had not been really drunk since she was bad that time, and his twitching had eased. There had been no row in the house for months either. Well, they said it was a long road that had no turning, and hers had turned.
On these pleasant thoughts the kitchen door was thrust open again. She turned towards it, but could not distinguish who was standing there. It could have been John, Shane or Dominic; but she was expecting none of them for another hour.
‘Why can’t you light the bloody gas!’
Mary Ellen groped for a piece of paper, which she lit in the fire and put to the mantle, then turned and looked at Dominic. She had seen his face portraying many moods, contorted with passion or anger, drawn tight with cunning; but his expression now was one she had never seen; his eyes were wide and hard, and to her mind, had the thick, dull shine of a beer bottle. He seemed to be spread in a new kind of anger, wide and high with it.
‘I want me tea now. I’m going out!’
‘Well, get in first, can’t you! It isn’t ready yet. Can’t you get changed and have it with the others?’
‘No, I can’t! And anyway, you wouldn’t expect God Almighty to sit down with me, would you?’
She stared at him. Had he gone off his head? She watched him fling his cap across the table on to the couch, pull off his coat and fling it after the cap. The coat, in its flight, whipped a number of pies on to the floor and sent a cloud of flour off the board.
‘Here!’ Mary Ellen cried, ‘what’s up with you?’
He did not answer, but grabbed the kettle from the hob and emptied it of hot water. He also emptied the pail of cold water, and proceeded to wash, the water splashing over the side of the dish and up the wall as he did so.
Mary Ellen cleaned up the mess from the floor; then picked up the kettle and pail and went cautiously down the backyard. The ashes on top of the ice were already covered with a layer of snow. The tap was running in a thin trickle and she stood on the fringe of ice and water, steadying herself against the wall as she filled the pail . . . Always something to spoil things. What was it now?
She hunted around in her mind, but could find nothing. Whatever it was was connected with his work, for he was home early. And him saying, ‘You wouldn’t expect God Almighty to sit down with me.’ Did he mean John? She couldn’t fathom it.
When she returned to the kitchen, Dominic was in the bedroom, and she hurriedly cleared the table and set some bread and dripping and mince pies out.
When he eventually came to the table he stared down at the food. ‘That’s a fine meal for a man, isn’t it!’ His voice seemed to be torn from his throat.
‘Well, you wouldn’t wait. I’m going to fry.’
‘You’re going to fry!’ he mimicked raspingly. ‘Well, see that you do plenty of it; the big pot’ll need it to fill his swelled head.’
Then his anger had to do with John. But how? What could have happened at work?
After having eaten all Mary Ellen had placed before him, Dominic left the house by the front way. As soon as the door banged behind him Mary Ellen went hastily into the room, and stood listening. Then, as she expected, came the muffled knock. He was next door.
She sang or hummed no more but, filled with the old dread, waited for John coming in—she had spoken too soon about her road turning. There was something afoot, and from the appearance of Dominic it was bad.
Katie and Molly rushed in, their hands blue and their noses red. ‘Oh, Ma, is the tea ready?’ ‘And, Ma, our Katie’s dirtied her knickers,’ cried Molly.
‘What!’
Both Katie and Molly burst out laughing at their mother’s expression. Molly bringing her head down to Katie’s and the two of them pressing their faces together in their mirth.
‘Not that way. She slipped on a slide and ended up in some broken ice and slush,’ Molly giggled.
‘Are you wet?’ Mary Ellen asked Katie.
‘No, Ma, it dried.’
‘Tea won’t be for some time yet,’ said Mary Ellen. ‘Here take a bit of bread and get yourselves out again.’
Mary Ellen pushed a slice of bread at each of them. ‘You can stay out for another half-hour or so. Hunt up Mick and bring him back with you.’ It would be better, she thought, if she had the house to herself when John came in.
When at last she heard the clanking footsteps in the yard, she stood still facing the door. It might be Shane. The feet kicked against the wall, and the door opened. It was John, not with brows drawn and lips tight, but with an almost childish expression of pleasure on his face. He wasn’t smiling—with an effort he was keeping his face straight—but the light in his eyes danced at her. She turned from him, puzzled. It couldn’t be that lass with the fur coat. No, how could that affect Dominic?
‘Is it still snowing?’ she asked, as she bent over the pan on the fire.
John didn’t answer, but came and stood by her. ‘Anybody in?’
‘No,’ she said.
He took her by the shoulders and pulled her round to face him, so close that her head had to go back to look up at him. ‘I’ll give you three guesses . . . What do you think’s happened?’
‘Why, lad, how should I know?’
‘Go on.’
‘You’ve been set on the Benisaf boat.’
John flung his head back and laughed out loud.
‘Aye, lad, how should I know? Tell us.’
He stepped back, thrust his thumbs into the lapel of his coat, drew himself up to his fullest height with mock dignity, and said, in the deepest tones of his voice, ‘Mrs O’Brien, behold . . . a gaffer!’
A gaffer . . . Mary Ellen could make no comment. Had he gone mad too? A gaffer. Her lad, and him only twenty-two. Why, there was something wrong somewhere. There was only one gaffer over the boats, and he must be a man steady in his years. The old gaffer had died a couple of days ago, she knew, but they couldn’t have picked John. It was fantastic. Her face expressed her feelings, and John laughed and said, ‘You don’t believe it?’
‘Well, lad . . .’
‘Yes, I know it’s hard to take in.’ He was suddenly serious. ‘I haven’t taken it right in meself yet. I couldn’t, for the life of me, believe they meant it.’
‘Did the men pick you?’
‘Yes, they voted for me to take old Reville’s place.’
It was customary for the dock men who unloaded the boats to choose their own boss. They also paid him so much a head out of their wages. Most of the unloading was paid on tonnage, and the gaffer’s job was to select men for the boat and at the end of discharging collect the money from the dock office, subtract his due and pay out the men. But this alone did not cover his duties, which often entailed taking off his coat and fighting it out with any man who thought he was not getting a square deal, and who said so forcibly. Another thing expected of the gaffer was to provide subs for men who were out of work and advances to those just being set on again.
This was in Mary Ellen’s mind when she said, ‘But lad, how can you do it? . . . The subs.’
‘I’ve got over that. You know McCabe in the dock office. Well, when I went to tell him he seemed to know how I was fixed, and offered to lend me a few pounds to make a start . . . I’ll be able to pay it back in a few weeks. And I won’t forget him for it.’
‘Lad, don’t start on borrowed money. There’s the twenty-five shillings for that coat. I don’t need a coat; I’ve made . . .’
‘Here . . . that’s enough. You’re getting that coat.’
‘Were all the men for you?’ She gazed up into his face; she was smiling now and her heart was racing within her breast. To think her lad had been picked for a gaffer. Oh, the road had turned all right.
‘Not all. But the ones that mattered were.’ He turned away and took off his coat. She knew he was referring to Dominic, and perhaps Shane.
‘Does your da know?’
‘Yes. He took it all right.’
She heaved a sigh of relief. Now perhaps Shane would get set on more often. No. She could quieten her hopes on that score—John would more likely be fair to the other extreme.
‘Was none of the others after it?’ she asked.
‘Yes. But none of them were steady.’
Her eyes became misted. They had picked him, despite his years, because he was . . . steady. Her John a gaffer. And Katie set on the road to be a teacher. Oh, God was good.
The tears, gathering in her throat, threatened to choke her, and she turned away and put her apron to her face.
‘Here! Here!’ John pulled her round, and as his great arms pressed her gently to him a dam burst within her. No sorrow could have broken it; but this happiness was overwhelming, and she sobbed it out, leaning against him.
An hour later, when John saw Christine, he knew that she was already aware of what he had come to tell her; and after she exclaimed, ‘Oh, John, what wonderful news! And at Christmas too,’ he looked at her closely and asked, ‘What’s the matter? Aren’t you well?’
‘Yes. Yes, I’m all right,’ she said hastily.
‘No you’re not, you’re as white as a sheet. Has . . . ?’
She turned away and picked up a half-dressed doll from the table. ‘Dominic’s just gone. He told me about you being made a gaffer,’ she said.
‘Yes, I bet he did; and he’ll likely be the first one I’ll have to take my coat off to. But that didn’t make you look like this.’
Christine sat down by the fire with the doll on her knee, and proceeded to pull a frilled silk dress over its head.
‘Look. If he’s been up to any of his tricks . . .’
Christine cut him short with unusual curtness: ‘He asked me to marry him.’ She said it while looking John full in the face; the look was almost a challenge, and he experienced a feeling of guilt. Why, he couldn’t fathom; but it was so strong that it swamped his indignation at Dominic’s audacity.
‘He wants me to go to Liverpool with him; then perhaps abroad.’
‘Abroad?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you going to marry him?’
‘No.’ She was still looking at him, the dress was only half over the doll’s head. He blinked, and looked away from her down at his feet; and she sighed faintly and resumed the fitting of the dress.
John looked at her again. She was so sweet sitting there dressing the doll; why couldn’t he go to her and put his arms about her and kiss her, just as often before he’d had the desire to kiss her? But he knew that, whereas for him it would merely be a kiss, to her it would be the absolute symbol of love. How he became possessed of this knowledge he didn’t know, for, as he had asked himself on previous occasions, what did he know about lasses? If she were Jenny Carey or Lily McDonald he would perhaps have kissed her by now and let things take their course, but with Christine he couldn’t, it wouldn’t be fair. Was it even fair to come in so often? He supposed not, but he liked talking to her and Peter.
The strain that had fallen on them was relieved by David appearing. After glancing round, he asked, ‘Has he gone then?’
‘If you’re staying in take your coat off, dear,’ said Christine.
John knew to whom David was referring, he also guessed that Dominic had shooed David out.
‘I’m getting a sculler for Christmas, John . . . a real one.’
‘No!’
‘Yes. Aren’t I, Christine?’
The boy’s large, dark eyes, glowing in his pale face, always aroused a tenderness in John. He was so thin, and almost girlish in his fragility.
John asked Christine, ‘He doesn’t mean a real one?’
‘Yes. Grandfather has already bought it—it’s at the quay corner. David’s going to paint it himself and get it ready for the fine weather. Aren’t you?’
The brother and sister smiled at each other. John realised that this was another of Peter’s ways to eliminate yet another fear from his grandson. The child was highly strung and nervous, and had never quite got over the shock of seeing his parents killed in a collision between a tram and a cab when he was five years old. The episode at the gut no doubt added the fear that the boat was to erase. And the thought came to John, as it had often done lately, that Peter was a splendid man. How could anyone mock at him? By! he wished he’d been there when that crowd of hooligans burnt his hut down. They would have gone along with it.
He looked at the boy standing by Christine’s side watching her put the bonnet on the doll . . . They were like a little family of saints, tender with each other, kind to everyone, and forgiving beyond his power to understand. He sat for a while longer watching Christine finishing the doll. Then he said he must get indoors and give a hand, for there were still more decorations to be hung around the walls.
Christine smiled at him as he left: ‘I’m glad about your job, John.’
‘Thanks. I knew you’d be . . . Tell Peter, will you?’
Christine nodded; and David cried suddenly, ‘I’m going to stand at the corner, Christine, and wait for Grandfather.’
The boy chattered loudly as he and John walked down the yard, but outside, in the back lane, he pulled at John’s arm and whispered, ‘John, can I . . . I want to tell you something.’
‘Yes, what is it, David?’ John stooped to him.
‘It’s Dominic—Christine’s frightened of him . . . she’s always frightened of him. He made me go out and he said to Christine you wouldn’t get her, but he would, some way. You won’t let him, will you?’
John remained silent for a moment, looking at the blur that was the boy’s white face, which stood out even against the newly fallen snow. It was straining up to him, appealing, pleading. ‘Don’t you worry, David. Christine will be all right; I’ll see to that.’
‘Will you, John? Will you?’
‘Yes—’ John patted David’s hand, and the boy seemed satisfied and ran off in evident relief; and John turned thoughtfully into the backyard, to meet Katie coming out of the lavatory.
‘Come in here a minute,’ he said to her, drawing her into the washhouse and closing the door; ‘I want you to do something for me.’
‘Yes, John?’
He knew by her voice that her face was eager. ‘Look; whenever you hear Dominic go in next door, you run in the other way, will you?’
‘Yes, John. But if me ma . . . ?’
‘You can tell her you are going to return something of David’s, a picture book or something.’
‘Yes, John.’
‘And no matter what he says, don’t leave him alone with her. If he makes you and I’m in, come and tell me. You’ve got that now?’
‘Yes, John.’
‘Has he ever chased you out?’
Remembering Christine’s warning, Katie merely answered, ‘Sometimes.’
‘Have you ever seen him . . . ?’ John stopped. ‘Well, never mind. You know what to do, don’t you?’
‘Yes, John.’
Neither Katie nor Molly could remember a Christmas Eve like this one. They had faint memories of being excited at the prospect of hanging up their stockings, and a memory, not so faint, of disappointment at the meagreness of their contents when they opened them; but tonight was different. In the cupboard at the side of the fireplace were parcels, some that John brought in last night, some from Christine, and others. Katie and Molly would make running dives at the lower door of the cupboard, calling, ‘I’m gonna open it, Ma! I am! I am!’
Apart from saying, ‘You dare,’ Mary Ellen took no notice of them. Her face wore a faint smile and her body seemed settled in contentment as her needles flew on the toe of a sock. They were the last few rows of a pair she was knitting for Shane. Why had she thought of knitting him socks for Christmas she didn’t know—she could not remember ever giving him anything at Christmas, except the first Christmas they were married. She wouldn’t, of course, say that these were for a Christmas box; she would just put them out with his change of clean underclothes. Perhaps he would notice them, perhaps he wouldn’t.
She glanced up as John came out of the bedroom, and she had to say to Katie, ‘Leave John be, hinny, he’s got to go out . . . Stop clambering! you’ll dirty his suit.’
‘Give me a shuggy before you go. Come on, John, just one,’ Katie coaxed.
‘Well mind, just one . . . that’s all.’
‘You’re worse than she is,’ said Mary Ellen as John sat down and crossed his knees and stuck a foot out.
Katie clambered on to the foot, and he held her hands as he hoisted her up and down. And she giggled and shouted, ‘But say it! You’re not saying it!’
‘Give over, Katie, John’s got to go out! You’ll be packed off to bed, mind . . . Oh, what’s the good! You’re worse than she is,’ Mary Ellen exclaimed, as John began to chant with each movement of his foot:
Father Christmas soon will come
Laden with all treasures.
I would like a boat to sail,
A rocky horse with a bushy tail,
A farthing or a spade and pail;
Katie wants a big, fat . . . dol-ly.
After the final heave, Katie fell off his foot, laughing, and John’s eyes were drawn, for a moment to Molly. She was standing to one side, smiling, yet wistful. He suddenly realised he’d never had much time for Molly, and, scatterbrain as she was, she felt it. He saw it in her face now as she stood there. Impulsively, his hand went out and he pulled her to him, saying, ‘Come on, you big soft lass,’ and, laughing and giggling, she sat on his foot.
‘Well I never. What next, I wonder!’ Mary Ellen’s tone was half laughing, half derisive.
Molly wasn’t so easy to lift as Katie, and before John was half-way through the rhyme she had tumbled off on to the floor, where she lay, clasping Katie, helpless with laughter.
Mary Ellen, trying not to allow her gaze to linger on this son of hers, who was looking so grand, said, ‘Get yourself away, lad, or else I’ll not get them to sleep the night. And if you should see Mick, send him in.’
John put on his coat, saying, ‘Well, expect me when you see me—I may have to follow the men to Newcastle to get the ducks. It’s six you want, isn’t it?’
He left the house with his mother joining in with the laughter of the children. The sound made him happy. There was something different about this Christmas . . . Well, so there should be. A gaffer! He breathed deep of the icy air. But it wasn’t that alone. There was a difference both inside and outside the house. Perhaps the difference lay in himself; life at last seemed to be opening.
He walked briskly to Tyne Dock, and stood waiting for the Shield’s tram. The snow plough had been out, and the space opposite the dock gates had the appearance of land on which the grab had been at work; pale grey mounds lined the pavement, and the hurrying figures, passing in and out of the lamplight and the light from the bars, looked jet black against them. Some iron ore men, still in their working clothes, came out of a bar and hailed John: ‘Why, man, you look as if you’ve had some money left you. Pinched our wages already? Or has the North-Eastern left you a prop boat?’
‘Aye, they offered me one for Christmas, but I told them what to do with it: “A Benisaf or nothing” I said.’
There was loud laughter at this. ‘I bet you did too! Well, a happy Christmas, and many of them,’ they called as they moved away. ‘And see we have full shifts for full bellies next year, mind.’
‘Many of them,’ John answered.
As he watched their unwieldy figures disappear into the darkness, he felt a thousand miles removed from them. They were good enough fellows in their way, but with one thought dominating them all . . . plenty of work, which meant plenty to eat and drink, or the reverse process. But somehow he didn’t feel of them. It wasn’t just since he had been made a gaffer, he had been feeling like this for some time past. Was it since he had got this coat? He didn’t know; something had changed him . . .
The aisles of the open market were congested with buyers, and the shouts of the stall-holders were deafening. John saw that it would be hours yet before the stuff was sold at anywhere near his price. Ten or eleven would be the time to come back. So he walked down King Street, debating whether he should go to the second house at the Empire or the Tivoli. To whichever place he went, he couldn’t go in the threepennies, not in this rig-out. It would mean the sixpennies, or even the ninepennies. That was one drawback of being dressed-up.
‘Hallo, Mr O’Brien.’ Mary Llewellyn stood in front of him, her arms laden with parcels.
‘Good evening, Miss Llewellyn.’
They were blocking each other’s path and that of the other pedestrians as, after the greeting, they stood mutely surveying each other, surprise showing in both their faces, as if this was the last place one would have expected to find the other.
‘Did you ever see such a crowd?’
‘No, I never have.’
John hadn’t noticed the crush before, but now they seemed to be hemmed in on all sides.
‘Are you doing your last-minute shopping?’ she asked him.
‘No . . . yes . . . Well’—his eyes twinkled—‘I’m hanging around until they give the ducks away in the market.’ And as he said it, he wondered why it cost him nothing in pride to admit such things to her.
They laughed together, and one irritated shopper exclaimed, ‘If you want to stand laughing your heads off clear off the flags and let people pass.’
They pulled long faces at each other, and Mary said, ‘I suppose she’s right.’
‘Can I carry some of your parcels to the tram?’ John asked.
‘Well, I wasn’t going home yet. But it would be a help if you’d relieve me of some of them for a time; I have a little more shopping to do.’
He took the boxes from her and stacked them under his arm. Then they turned towards the market again, John walking slightly ahead of her to make a way.
Laughing gaily, she left him outside while she went into a linen shop, and he stood gazing into the window, seeing nothing. He knew that this night was different. There was magic about it; in the cold and the snow, in people’s faces, and in meeting her. Strange, up till a few months ago, he had never set eyes on her. But since that night he had been to see her they had run into each other a number of times, mostly when he was coming from work; yet she didn’t seem to mind his working clothes. The first time they met, it was she who stopped and talked, just as if he were all got up instead of being covered from head to foot with splatters of wet clay. He had been working on a boat from Sweden, and the ore was embedded in lumps of clay, which made the digging and picking heavy and dirty.
After these meetings, he never allowed himself to think, using his mother’s formula . . . thinking got you nowhere. She was interested in Katie, and through Katie, kind to him. That was that. But this meeting, like everything else on this Christmas Eve, was different. She had asked him to carry her parcels, and he was standing waiting for her as if he was her . . .
‘I won’t ask you to carry this one.’ She was standing by his side, and he stared at her, not speaking; her face, under her fur-trimmed hat, shone at him like a star. For one brief second, the street and the hurrying crowds vanished, and she was alone in a vast emptiness, shining, and for him.
His face was unsmiling and his voice deep in his throat as he asked, ‘Have you time . . . would you care to go to a variety show or the pantomime?’
He waited, tense and unthinking as her smile faded. The expression in her eyes changed a number of times in as many seconds, but not once did they portray annoyance or amusement.
‘I should love to.’ She turned away from him, and he fell into step by her side, thinking now, as he had never thought before: Had he gone mad? What of the Mr Culbert? It was Christmas Eve and perhaps she was expected at home for a party or something. What in the name of God had made him ask her! And what about money? He had five shillings of his own . . . would that do? . . . Yes. Somehow, he knew she wouldn’t expect too much. But again, what in the name of God had made him do it! It was the last thing on earth he would have thought of doing . . . Or was it? Hadn’t he often wondered what it would be like to take someone of her stamp out? Yes, but just as one dreamt dreams, never for one moment expecting them to happen. The funny thing was she hadn’t refused. She hadn’t been merely polite, either; she seemed quite sincere when she said, ‘I’d love to.’ Well, now he must put his thinking cap on. They would have to go in the very best seats, and she’d have to have some bullets. Bullets! he repeated scornfully . . . chocolates. Get a little box . . . A box! No need to go mad altogether. She wouldn’t expect it anyway. He pushed his shoulders back. Expected or not, he’d get a box.
‘Do you think there’s time for me to make a telephone call?’
They were standing outside the Empire, and for a moment she drifted from him into the class that made telephone calls.
‘Where do you have to go? The post office?’ he asked.
‘Yes; I won’t be more than five minutes.’
‘Of course. Come on.’ He shouldered his way through the crowd. Class or no class, she was going out with him, this once anyway. And he’d do the thing properly; it would be something to remember.
In spite of her fur coat and rinking boots, Mary shivered as she waited in the telephone box. It had happened as she hoped it might. But where would it lead? . . . There was time enough to ask that later, she told herself. What she had to do now was to smooth things over with those at home.
She gave a gentle sigh when she heard her father’s voice say, ‘Yes. Who is it?’
‘It’s me, Mary.’
‘Mary? Why, where are you? What’s up? You should be home by now; we’re nearly ready.’
‘Look, dear. I won’t be home . . . not until . . . quite late.’
‘But where are you? You know you can’t do that, Mary; we’re going to Gilbert’s! Look lass’—he cut her short as she was about to speak—‘it’s Christmas, and we want things to go peaceable like. Where are you, anyway?’
‘Shields Post Office.’
‘What’s made you change your mind?’
‘I . . . Well, I met a friend.’
‘But it isn’t right. You know what a state this will put your mother in.’
‘I never wanted to go. I’ve told her so all along. She shouldn’t have accepted for me . . . Look, Father, can’t you see what Mother is trying to do?’
‘Yes. I know, I know.’
‘Well then, why should you want me to go? And anyway, it isn’t fair to Gilbert. She’s giving him the idea that I can be coaxed round, and I can’t.’
‘Who’s your friend?’
‘Oh, you . . . you don’t know him.’
‘It’s a man then?’
‘Yes, it’s a man.’
‘Well, this is going to be a lovely evening for me.’
Mary laughed softly. ‘It’s yourself you’re thinking about.’
‘Well partly.’ There was a chuckle. ‘You’ll be for it tomorrow, mind. And somehow I did think this was going to be a peaceful Christmas.’
‘It’s the loveliest Christmas I’ve ever known. Goodbye, dear.’
‘Here! Mary . . . look, who’s this fellow?’
‘We may talk about him later.’
‘Mary . . . you’ll go to Midnight Mass? For God’s sake don’t miss that, or there’ll be hell to pay.’
‘We’ll see. Goodbye. Wait. Do you want to know something?’
‘What is it?’
‘I like you, Mr Llewellyn.’
Laughing, she hung up the phone, and almost ran to join John.
Mary Ellen yawned. She wished John was in, and then she’d go to bed. She leaned back and glanced up at the clock . . . ten-past eleven. Had he managed to get a duck?
She sat with her chair drawn up close to the fire, her feet on the fender, her skirt tucked up on to her lap, exposing her short legs to the dying ashes. The house was quiet, only Shane’s and Dominic’s snores alternating with each other’s from the rooms. Behind her, the girls lay curled up under the thin brown blankets and a heap of coats; and, at each end of the mantelpiece hung their packed stockings, together with one for Mick.
As she yawned again, she heard the muffled pad of footsteps on the yard, and, pulling down her skirt, she got up to open the scullery door as John quietly lifted the latch of the back door.
Stupefied, Mary Ellen gazed at him; then, in a whispered exclamation, said, ‘In the name of God! have you bought the market?’
John laughed softly as he lowered a great parcel on to the table, followed by a stone brown paper bag and a square box. ‘You’ll never guess what it is . . . it’s a turkey! And this is a bag of fruit. And there’s bullets in that box.’ He spoke softly and rapidly.
‘A turkey! But where’d you get the money, lad?’ Mary Ellen looked closely at him. If she didn’t know differently she’d have thought he’d had a drop—his eyes were shining, like coals . . . Perhaps it was the frost.
‘We . . . I waited till the last thing, and I got him for four bob.’
‘But what’s all this other?’
‘Fruit.’
‘A stone bag of it!’ Mary Ellen looked amazed. ‘Are they specked?’
‘No, I should say not.’
John did not look at her. He had taken off his cap and was combing his hair. ‘Miss Llewellyn sent them for the bairns.’
Mary Ellen stared silently at his profile. Miss Llewellyn.
John turned to her, putting on his cap again. ‘I’m going to Midnight Mass at Jarrow. I’m getting the last tram up.’
Miss Llewellyn and Midnight Mass. Her lad going to Midnight Mass with Miss Llewellyn! It was funny but she’d been thinking about Midnight Mass earlier on this evening, feeling the need to give thanks for all her good fortune at this Christmas time. It was years since she had been to Midnight Mass, and in spite of her tiredness, she’d thought: For two pins I’d go to Midnight Mass if John was in. She would have worn her new coat, although it wouldn’t have mattered about going in her shawl; there’d be mostly shawls and mufflers there anyway. And she’d imagined herself kneeling as she used to do in the aisle, or even on the altar steps, wrapped about in the thick, incensed air, full of hushed rustle, so full would the church be. And for a brief hour she would really feel the Child was being born and be one with Mary in her travail.
But John was going to Midnight Mass, and he was going with Miss Llewellyn. She knew now the reason for the light in his eyes.
John tried not to show undue haste, but there was only a few minutes before the tram would pass the bottom of the street, and she would be on it. Already it was late, and perhaps they’d not get in the church. He did not want this to happen, for he had the desire to kneel at Mass with her, not only because it would mean being with her another hour or more, but because to go to Mass with a lass had a subtle meaning, which neither needed nor could be defined by words.
The four hours they had been together seemed to spread back down his lifetime. There seemed no moment when he had not watched the expressions dancing over her face like shadows in a garden, nor a moment when he had not been carrying her parcels or buying her chocolates, or when he was not sitting with her in the dark and laughing with her at a pantomime; or when there was a second in his life when she did not urge him to remain quiet while the stallholder, in desperation, brought his final and unmovable price of eight shillings a turkey down to four shillings! or when had he not watched her taking her choice of fruit, bananas, pomegranates, oranges, apples, pears and nuts. And now they were going to Midnight Mass, and there would be no tram back. They would have to walk all the way from Dee Street, in the centre of Jarrow, to the heart of Simonside. It would be a long way for her, and difficult walking, for the pavements were sheets of knobbly grey ice; and it would be a long way to walk without touching each other. She might have to take his arm—he thought of it as ‘link’—Miss Llewellyn and him linking!
A surge of feeling that demanded some form of expression swept through him, and, stooping, he kissed Mary Ellen swiftly on the side of the brow. Without a word, he was gone. And Mary Ellen stood fingering the place his lips had brushed . . . Her lad had kissed her . . . for the first time since he was a tiny bairn. And because he was in love.
She had been worried lately, thinking he was struck on her next door, and had wondered where it would lead, for she doubted, if he took her, there’d be much happiness for him; not that she had anything really against the lass, only that terrifying religion of hers. God knew there was no happiness came out of a mixed marriage. With a Church of England one it would be bad enough, but with a Spiritualist! . . . And yet, as awful as that possibility seemed, he would have had a little show of happiness in a way, whereas now there was none for him that she could see. For what was the obstacle of religion compared with the obstacle of class? Had he gone mad? And that Llewellyn lass, too? Where did they think it would lead? Her da was a boatbuilder; and a docker, even a gaffer, would be so much midden muck to him. They had a fancy house, with even a lavatory inside, so Katie said, and kept a parlourmaid and a cook. Was the lass mad? There was no-one better than her lad, no-one in the wide world, but he was a docker and from the fifteen streets. And that lass must know nothing could come of it . . . She was struck by his size and his ways, and she would shelve him when the novelty wore off. And what would it do to him? She thought of his eyes when he had come in, and slowly she sat down by the fire again and stared into its rose-grey embers.