With Love From Ma Maguire (31 page)

‘Sarah!’ screamed Molly. ‘Sarah – look!’

Still depending heavily on her supporters, Ma moved the right leg fractionally, pulling it along in short spurts until both slippers stood side by side. With a small cry of triumph, Paddy lifted his mother into his arms and placed her in the carpet chair. ‘Pack her in with pillows, Molly,’ he gasped. ‘There’s life in the old girl yet! And she weighs a blinking ton and all.’

The three of them stood and stared at Ma once she was safely wedged. She was shaking fit to burst, trembling like a leaf.

Molly fell to her knees. ‘What’s matter, lass? Did we hurt you?’

Ma’s head shook slightly.

‘What is it, then?’

‘Un . . . Porr . . .’

‘Uncle Porrick – yes?’

‘Sa . . . id litt . . . peo . . . ple . . .’ Ma looked from Molly to Sarah. Neither of them was more than five feet tall. ‘Tr . . . ue!’

Molly clapped her hands in childlike delight. ‘She says it’s come true. Uncle Porrick said if she wore the brooch, then the little people would help her. Well, Sarah. They don’t come much littler than you and me—’

‘What about me?’ asked Paddy. ‘I’m not little.’

Sarah looked him over. ‘No. You can be an honorary member. There are many ways of being small, Paddy. One is to lie in bed while your wife runs around silly. From now on, you will pull your weight. Understood?’

‘Yes, Miss.’ He touched his forelock mockingly. ‘Any more orders?’

‘A cup of tea and a scone would not go amiss. And a few scraps for this miserable hound.’

Ma looked at the dog and the dog looked at Ma. A thin tail wagged hopefully. Somehow, the animal empathized with Ma, realized that he and she were underprivileged, not fully furnished, not quite up to the mark.

Sarah, watching this silent communication, released the dog from its moorings and it leapt across the room, flinging itself in abject obedience and adoration at Ma’s feet.

‘Keep him,’ said Sarah magnanimously. ‘I’ve too many cats, have to get rid of him anyway. He’s a difficult character, was almost drowned as a newborn, can’t seem to trust me. He likes you, though. Name’s Yorick, took it from Shakespeare, you know. Yorick was a mere skull and this fellow was all bone when I got him. He’ll help you recover, believe me. There’s nothing like a dog for keeping a person up to the mark.’

Molly’s jaw dropped. A blinking dog to look after on top of everything else! ‘Are you sure?’ she asked, hoping against hope.

‘Yes. Take him, he’s yours.’

They sat by the fire drinking tea. Ma could manage a cup all right, though she still needed a pot towel on her chest to catch dribbles from her one-sided mouth.

Paddy sniffed the air gingerly. Something stank, that was for sure. And it wasn’t even the blinking dog, it was Miss Sarah Leason, all horse liniment and cat hairs, she was. He wondered if she’d ever heard of lavender water or Evening in Paris. Likely not. That was what they sprayed round at the Rialto between performances, California Poppy or Evening in Paris, just to take the edge off one lot of sweaty leavings before letting the next crowd in. He couldn’t go to the pictures no more on account of the pongs. It was the kids, he knew that. If some poor little soul wanted the lav, big brother or sister made them squat on the floor so they wouldn’t miss any of the story. Then it all ran down the front. Hence the need for lavender water and the like.

‘What are you thinking about, Paddy?’ Molly asked. She could tell when he was actually thinking, because his face looked occupied for a while.

‘The pictures. Haven’t been for ages.’

‘I’ve never been,’ said Sarah proudly. ‘And I never shall. Don’t read the papers, no idea at all of what’s going on in the world. Not interested, you see. Enough to do walking from here to the Hollies just to see my horse.’

‘You’ve missed a treat with the pictures,’ said Molly, grinning widely. ‘Remember him with the long pole when we were kids, Paddy?’

He laughed loudly. ‘Do I? Aye, he marched up and down that aisle clocking us, didn’t he? The pole was just long enough to reach halfway from either direction. Had them made to measure, he did.’

‘And her on the piano playing sad music at the happy part and the other way round.’

‘Sh . . . ee wa . . . dea . . . f.’

Molly nudged her husband’s arm. ‘She’s talking, lad.’

‘Pa . . . dd . . . ee rea . . . d for me.’ Her face was contorted with the effort, but the sentence came out well towards its end.

‘That’s right,’ agreed Paddy. ‘I used to read the captions for you. Some lads got in free every week as readers, paid for by somebody who’d never learned. Them were the days, eh Ma?’

‘Y . . . es. G . . . ood day . . . s.’

‘Better than these, what?’ snapped Sarah. She turned her attention to Paddy now. ‘I should never have allowed you to talk me into it. There isn’t room in that house to swing a cat – and I’ve enough of those if I chose to swing them. I should have stayed on the moor.’

‘You’d have died,’ he said baldly. ‘And been well rotted afore anybody found you. Swainbank was your nearest neighbour and when did he ever put in an appearance, eh? No, we did the right thing. And you got a fair price for the land, so stop your moaning.’

‘I miss the space and I miss Samson.’

‘Get away with your bother! Them’s nice folk what have took over the Hollies. It’s a grand house again and Samson’s got his own stable. Good horse, that. Look what you’ve had out of him for stud. Mind, you’d have made a lot more if you hadn’t been so choosy.’

‘I wasn’t having him fathering hunters. Carriage and show horses I don’t mind. But hunters?’ She shivered. ‘Still, I suppose it wasn’t the same after Fergus left me. Perhaps you’re right. But I do hate living down here. It’s like Dante’s Inferno at times . . .’

‘Who’s he when his mother shouts him in for his dinner?’

‘Oh, never mind, Paddy.’ She jumped up with all the agility of a child. ‘I’ll leave you with your dog, then.’

Paddy and Molly stared unenthusiastically at the latest addition to their family. Although he was a great lover of animals, Paddy had never seen anything quite like Yorick before. The young animal was asleep, curled up at Ma’s feet with his head tucked up to his tail. ‘I hope he doesn’t bite the kids,’ said Molly. ‘If he does, you’ll have to take him back.’

‘If they don’t bite him, he won’t bite them,’ she pronounced.

‘He bit you.’

‘He doesn’t like me. Obviously a discerning animal. Nobody with any sense likes me.’ She touched Ma’s shoulder. ‘They think I’m a witch because of the cats. It suits me. They leave me alone.’

She swept out, leaving behind her an aroma that was not quite savoury.

‘Nee . . . ds a goo . . . d wa . . . sh,’ said Ma. ‘And a de . . . cent fr . . . ock.’

Molly glanced at Paddy. ‘I think your mam’s on the mend. So you’d best buck up, hadn’t you? And don’t be sneaking off, I’ll need you to help me get her back to bed later on.’

Yorick stretched, yawned and struggled into a sitting position, his solemn brown eyes fixed firmly on his new mistress’s face. First a paw, then a muzzle rested on her knee. The pink tongue began to lick her right hand and she smiled at her canine friend, giving him the odd conspiratorial wink from time to time. It was her secret for now, hers and the dog’s. Because Ma could feel the roughness of his whiskers, the wetness of his tongue, even the heat of his breath. But she wouldn’t hope too much, not just yet.

He was a mess of a dog, looked as if he’d been put together with the nuts and bolts in all the wrong places. His feet were huge and he’d probably finish up enormous. But for some reason she couldn’t quite work out, Ma loved Yorick right from the start. And she knew that he loved her.

‘I wonder what it’s like being dead?’

Joey stared at his sister in amazement. ‘Like nothing on earth, I’d say.’

‘Aw, don’t go all funny on me. I was just wondering, like. Specially at our age.’

He looked up at the sky and sniffed noisily. Sometimes, he just couldn’t catch their Janet’s drift at all. ‘You can’t be dead at our age.’

‘Course you can. It was in the paper, that there Mr Swainbank’s boys – they’re dead at sixteen and fourteen.’

‘Then they’ve stopped being sixteen and fourteen, haven’t they? Once you’re dead, you stop having an age.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes.’ He leaned nonchalantly against Miss Leason’s wall. ‘Dead means finished, so don’t think about it. We haven’t hardly started living yet. I’m going to have a good life, I am. Plenty of money and a car.’

Janet thought about her brother. He’d always been on the make, had their Joey. Almost as soon as he could walk, he was into things, taking empties back for the odd penny, helping the clogger out by picking up spilled nails with a big magnet, collecting with the ragman on a Saturday for tuppence. Lately, he’d started on a paper round, though his shoe and clog cleaning business seemed to have fizzled out. He was up to something, she could sense it.

‘I’ve thought of a way we can get a bit of brass put together,’ he said now.

‘What for?’

Joey sighed deeply and dropped his shaking head. Women. There was no following their trail at all. It was like they were a different species from another world, a law unto themselves with their daft way of reckoning. Still, their Janet was different, wasn’t she? She was his, born on the same day, sharing everything with him since before the start. He would make something of himself for Janet. One day, they’d both have everything . . .

‘What do you want to go making money for, Joey?’

‘What do you mean, “what for?”? For things, is what for! I don’t want to be starting me apprenticeship in clogs, do I? Oh no, I’m after a pair of boots, proper leather with irons on the toes and heels for good wear. Cost a bob or two, do boots. And you’ll be wanting a new frock once you get set on. See, Janet – you’ve got to have a goal, a dream, a thing you want, or a few things.’

‘Why?’

‘Because . . . because otherwise, life’s daft. I mean, you don’t want everything to stop the same, do you? We shall get our own place, just thee and me, away from Granny and Mam, away from Dad with his booze and bad turns—’

‘You get him the drink, Joey.’

‘I know. It shuts him up, keeps him out of the road.’

‘But Mam says it’s killing him, eating away at his innards—’

‘Good!’

She stepped back. ‘Our Joey!’

‘Well, I mean it. We’d be better off without him – aye and the old girl too. No, I’m not talking about Mam, I mean the owld dragon in the front room. All the street’s bloody scared of her, but I’m not, oh no. She’s a pain in the bum and so’s our Dad, waste of Mam’s time the pair of them.’

Janet opened her mouth to speak, but was stopped by the sudden arrival of Miss Leason. ‘Just left your house,’ announced the sprightly old lady. ‘Ma’s up in a chair and I’ve managed to resurrect the dead from beyond the stairway too. Yes, as I’ve always said about a lazy horse, a swift punch on the rump gets the bugger going.’ She studied the two children’s faces. It was obvious that they were in the middle of a disagreement. ‘Quarrelling?’ she demanded. ‘No time for that! Shouldn’t be allowed.’

‘It’s nothing much,’ said Janet quietly.

‘Isn’t it?’ This pair didn’t belong with the rest somehow. There was something about them, a faint resemblance to another litter altogether. Still, no matter. ‘I’ve balls and books for you,’ she announced. ‘Exercise for mind and body, that’s what you need.’ She shot up the path and into the house.

‘Follow her – go on,’ challenged Joey.

‘She’s weird.’

He laughed. ‘Aye. Black cats and funny brews, just like Gran.’

‘Gran never had a cat. And Miss Leason’s no witch – she’s just odd.’

‘Go in, then.’

‘No. Joey, don’t you love our Gran? And Dad too? Don’t you care about your own family?’

His face was brick-red. ‘I care about Mam and you. But—’

‘What about Michael and Daisy?’

‘I’d see them right, but they’re not like us, Janet. We’re twins, we belong together. Michael and Daisy are . . . responsibilities, people I’ll have to look after being as I’m the oldest. But you’re my sister—’

Miss Leason dumped a bag of books and a metal bucket on the pavement by their feet. ‘Books and balls,’ she announced before stamping back into the house.

‘Bloody hell,’ cursed Joey. ‘All the years she’s kept our rounders and cricket balls and hidden them in the scullery. All lined up by the back door, they were. Now she decides to be nice when we’re nearly too old for games.’

They looked over their shoulders. Miss Leason’s house was terraced like theirs, but bigger, with gates, a garden, bow windows and fancy patterns in the brickwork above the front door. The houses at each side of hers were pretty, painted in greens and blues, nice crisp curtains in the windows, vases of flowers and pot dogs on the sills. But Sarah’s house stank, waves of bad air wafting out into the garden. It was terrible inside, Joey knew that. Five years she’d lived here, during which time she’d turned it into a right mess. Once, on a dare off Colin Shuttleworth over a bag of ballbearings, Joey had climbed Miss Leason’s wall and had a real good look, not just for the balls they’d kicked over, but through the windows and past filthy rags of curtain. The ashes under the range were raked out to the middle of the floor, never cleared from one month to the next. The slopstone had been filled with decaying food, tea leaves and half a dozen yowling cats.

He swallowed hard. In spite of the contempt he felt for Miss Leason, he somehow understood her. There was no meaning in her life, nowt to aim for. Though she was clever, he knew that. Likely rich too. Rich, but without the sense to know how to spend her money. Aye, clever was one thing, sensible another matter altogether.

Janet fingered the set of books. ‘Look, Joey! Aren’t they lovely?’

His face lit up. ‘By, they’ll be worth something, they will. Leather bound and all. I wonder how much we’ll get?’

‘Don’t you dare!’ screamed Janet. ‘Don’t even think about it! These are little encyclopedias – I’m keeping them.’

‘They stink.’

Janet squared up to him for the first time in her life, fists bunched, eyes wide and angry. ‘I’ll put them in the washhouse to air. Touch these, Joey Maguire and I’ll never talk to you again. That’s after I’ve knocked your blinking head off!’