Pure as the Lily (2 page)

“Hello, me baim.”

“Hello, Granda. Can’t you get it to go?”

Damn an’ set fire to it! That’s what I say. Oh be-god, look! “ He hooted like a young boy as a flame spiralled up from amid the damp cinders.

“It did the trick. Damn and set Ere to it, I said. What d’you think of that?”

“Granda, you’re making a smoke, you’ll choke us.” Mary coughed and flapped her hands, and Alee said, “It’s a waste of cinders, we won’t be

stopping. By the way, did you go to the tip this mornin’ and get me mother any? She was nearly out.”

“No, I didn’t go this morning I went last night. I got a bag of slack, she’s bakin’. That satisfy you?” Alee sniffed, then looking at the fire, he asked with evident irritation, What made you get it going anyway? Did you expect a tea party? “

“Aye, just that. Look.” Peter screwed round on the dirt floor and pointed to a shelf behind him, on which was reposing a two-ounce packet of tea and a small tin of condensed milk.

“Come into money?” Alee looked down at his father through narrowed eyes.

“Not that you could say, lad.”

“Well, where did you get that pair? I bet me mother never gave you them.” You’re right there, your mother never did. She’s a mean old scrub your mother, the meanest old scrub I’ve known in me life. “

“Oh, Granda!” Mary was laughing, her mouth wide. Eeh! her gran da was a turn. To hear him talking you’d think he hated her grannie, whereas he thought the sun shone out of her.

“Aye, a mean woman your grannie.” He nodded at her.

“Why. I’ve known her put a piece of las tic on a penny an’ stretch it to a shilling.

Eeh aye! that’s your grannie. “

“It’s as well for you she’s been able to do that.” Alec’s nod towards his father was sober, sullen, and Mary wanted to turn to him and say, “Granda’s only funnin’, Da,” but her da was low the day, very low; that business over at Wallsend had hurt him. Oh, if only he could get work, work of any kind. All their problems would be solved, if only he could get work. Even her mother would be nice to him then. Oh, she was sure her mother would be nice to him if only he could get a job.

“Did you lift these?” Alee was weighing the tea and milk in his hand, and his father, turning on him with stretched face, said, “What! me lift anything? Now would I? Ask yourself, would I?”

“No need to ask me self did you?”

“God’s holy honour!” Peter crossed himself, a symbolic action which, in his case, was merely a relic from the days of his Catholic grandparents.

“Aw’—Alee tossed his head to one side and repeated, “ God’s holy honour! “ Then nodding at his father he said, “ One of these days you’ll end up along the line, mark my words. “

“Aye well you might be right, lad. The only thing I hope is that they put me on a fast train.” He now turned to Mary and, putting his head on one side and his arms akimbo, he took up the stance of a gossiping woman and, imitating a blatherer, he bent towards her saying, “You know hinny, I cannot bear slow trains. Fast women, an’ slow trains, I cannot abear them.” As Mary again doubled up. Alee said sternly, “That’s enough of your slaver, that’s enough. Stop actin’

the goat, man.”

“I’ve got some sandwiches, Granda,” said Mary quietly now; ‘it’ll be like a picnic. “

“Sandwiches, eh? Let’s see.” He looked down at the open parcel, at the curling edges of the dry bread and, lifting a slice he said, “By!

tongue. My! has there been a banquet at the baronial hall? “

“She had a meetin’.”

“What for this time?”

“Boots for hairns.”

“Oh aye, boots for balms. When are they doing anythin’ for aald men?”

“I’ll ask her the morrow “ You do that, an’ tell her I’m in need of some linings. And your grannie wants bloomers. “

“Da! Give over, will you?”

Chuckling, Peter gave over, and busied himself with blowing the fire until the water bubbled in the tin can; then he mashed the tea in a brown teapot with a broken spout, and when they were sitting on upturned boxes and a bucket drinking the hot sweet liquid and eating the sandwiches, he broke the silence by looking at his son and saying, You know where I’ve been the day?

“

No. “

They stared at each other for a moment before Peter said, “Shields Gazette office.”

“Shields Gazette office! All the way down there! You walked all the way to the Shields Gazette office?

You must be mad, man.”

“Oh, I didn’t go to High Shields, not to the Bcain office, I went to the one on the Dock Bank.”

“Did they throw you out?”

“Aye’—his eyes twinkled ‘just about’ “ Small wonder. “ Alee turned his head completely away from his father and looked out of the open door into the twilight that was already beginning; and now he said.

You must be right barmy. Nobody’s goin’ to buy rhymes; they don’t buy good stuff the day, never mind rhymes, man. God, you really must be up the pole.”

“They’re not rhymes I tell you once again, they’re not rhymes, they’re poetry. An somebody’ll buy them some day, you mark my words.”

“Aw, Da.” Alee was facing his father again, his head bobbing now, his face red. You know what? You make me embarrassed, you an poetry! You don’t know the difference at ween a full stop ah’ a bus stop. “

“Maybe not; but neither did Robbie Burns.”

That’s not it. Robbie Burns lived in a different age, and he had something to say. “

“Well so have I, lad. I’ve got something to say an’ all. Listen to this.” He thrust his hand into an inner pocket of his shapeless top coat and pulled out a bundle of papers, but Alee flapped his hand backward at him, saying, “I don’t want to hear.”

“Oh Da! Da.” Mary was tugging gently at his sleeve, her voice placating. Then she turned to her gran da

“Go on, Granda,” she said, ‘go on,” and Peter, holding a piece of dogeared paper before him, said, “ I’m goin’ on, lass, it’ll take more than me thick-heided son to stop me. Listen this, it’s called “Value for money” “ He now tilted his chin upwards, slanted her eyes downwards and began:

“We played ma’s and da’s Those years ago;

Ma’s apron and skirt, Da’s shirt and old bowler.

Round the top corner In the chimney breast We played at houses, In which the test Was Birth.

Our Jimmy, Three years old, The bairn, New delivered into the house In the chimney breast, Yelled like any new flesh Feeling air upon its skin.

But him, He yelled for taffie Which was his pay For playing the hairn That day.

Now the day, he stands Shiverin’ Outside the bedroom From where he hopes His firstborn Will yell.

No tame the day, No pay, Just sweating hell And dim surprise That from the dole queue, The gap, The Guardian’s food ticket, The corner end, The tip, The man somewhere in him not quite spent Has the vitality To earn the two bob Allowed for a baim By the Government.

“There!” Peter nodded at his son’s back and at his granddaughter’s soft, tear-bright eyes.

“I think it’s lovely, Granda.” There was a break in her voice. She bent in front of Peter now and, her tone loud, she said, T)a, I do, I do; I think it’s lovely, sad, but lovely. “ Her father turned slowly towards her and said heavily, “All right, all right, it’s lovely.” Since he was a very small boy Alee had listened to his father’s rhymes, and if his father had been able to keep them within the perimeter of the family he would not have minded, but his father was convinced that he was a poet, a poet of the people and, when given the opportunity, would read his efforts aloud. True, he would be able to put more into them than was in the written word because he was a bit of an actor when he got going, but as the years went on Alee found that he was more than a bit of an embarrassment, people laughed at him. And he didn’t want his father to be laughed at, he was angered by it, for at the bottom he knew that his father had something, something rare. Yet he felt that this something was a handicap, for even in the old days when there was work, he didn’t seem to be able to hold down a job. He considered that if his father had put as much effort into earning his bread as he did into his rhymes his mother would have weathered the slump for a number of years. But 2 i7

anyway his mother had had one advantage over other people, she had learned a long time ago, as his father had just said, to stretch a penny to a shilling. There were times when he admitted to a deep feeling for his father. He did not give it the name of love, but that’s what it was; for who could help loving him, a man such as he was, a man who retained, in spite of everything, the joy of living.

Alee now looked at Mary. Her eyes were pleading with him to be kind to his father. In a way she took after his father, she had the same kindness in her, and, like him, she was given to spurts of joy; only her joy didn’t run to poetry, thank God. He smiled inwardly and his eyes lingered on her. What would he do with his life if he hadn’t her?

She was his one splace, his one joy. Some day she would marry and what then? Sufficient unto that day; let him enjoy her when he had her, for long or short. But from the way she was turning out he doubted that their time together would be long for she was real bonny, and blossoming further every day. Her skin was pure milk and roses and those eyes of hers, not usual; nobody on his side, or on Alice’s, had green eyes. She had likely inherited them from far back. They were a deep clear green, like looking down through water, and when they were soft and moist, as they were now, and shaded by her long lashes, they did something to him, brought a restriction under his ribs. His love for her was like a pain, it gnawed at him at times, times when he dreaded anything bad would happen to her. She was as tall as him now and still growing. Some day, and not far off, she’d be a spanker, a breathtaking spanker, and she was worth somebody better than the fellows around the doors, for who were around the doors?

There were fifty houses on their side of the street and only three men out of that lot in full-time work. The few lads that were at work were apprenticed and as soon as they finished their time they’d be out on their backsides. Of course, that didn’t stop them from getting married. Some of them married while they were still serving their time and had a couple of baims afore they were twenty. But that wouldn’t happen to Mary; no, by God, not if he knew it. He didn’t know how he was going to do it but he was going to get her away from the street and from Mrs. Turner’s and her fourpence an hour; if it was only into a shop, a good class shop. It would be a bit of prestige anyway.

He had been going down to the reading room at the Institute every morning lately looking up the jobs, not for himself because that was hopeless, they didn’t advertise for fitters in the newspapers, but something for her, for if he didn’t do something for her nobody else would. Her mother wouldn’t. The situation as it was just suited her;

Mary coming home in the afternoon to get the tea and see everything was ready for Master Jimmy coming in, and then doing the ironing and all the odd jobs that she left her while she went out earning.

Earning! It used to be two hours in the morning at the shop and two hours in the afternoon, but now she was scarcely away from it.

“Da! Will you have another sup tea?”

“No, hinny, thanks. Look, it’s getting on.” He nodded towards the deepening light.

“I think we’d better be making a move.” He turned round on the upturned bucket, then pushed his father in the shoulder with his fist, saying jocularly now, “Come on you, Poet Laureate!” And at this they all laughed.

As they dampened down the fire and gathered up their things, Peter said, “Aye, you never know.

There’s many a true word spoke in joke.

Just you wait, there’s time enough yet. I’ll have the laugh on this town when I appear in T. P. an’

Cassell’s Weekly. Aye, an’ John 0’ London’s. “

“Evenin’ dress or morning suit, Granda?”

“Listen to her! Listen to her!” cried Peter, and father and son now looked at Mary, joined in this moment in their admiration for her, and Peter said, “There, you’re so bloomin’ sharp you’ll be cutting yourself! Punch for you, me girl!” Then suddenly holding her face tightly between his two hands, he repeated, “Evenin’ dress or morning suit? and out with it as quick as knife I tell you it’s good enough for i9

Punch. Aw, me love. “ He bent forward swiftly and kissed her on the side of her mouth, and she hugged him for a moment before he turned from her, blinking rapidly and crying, “ Where the devil’s it is it was I put it? “

“What Granda?”

The pipe, me pipe. “

“Asking the road you know.” Alec’s voice was a mumble as he walked out of the door and along the narrow winding path between the partly stripped stumps of sprouts and cabbages.

Back in the hut Mary pressed threepence into her gran da hand, and he held on to hers as he said, “Ta, me hairn. Ta. I’ll pay you back, I will. Somehow, some day I’ll pay you back.” His head was bobbing all the while and she whispered to him, “I know you will, Granda. And mind’—she now poked her nose close to his “ I want interest. “ They came out of the hut laughing loudly; and now Peter put his arm around her waist and, in a deep musical voice, he began to sing:

“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. “ A man’s voice came across the allotment shouting, You’re in good voice the day, Peter,” and Peter called back, “ Never better, Sam. Never better. It’s this warm weather. “ They laughed while their breaths formed clouds in the biting air.

When they came up to Alee, Mary walked between them, and, thrusting the bass bag at her father, she said, “Will you carry that. Da?” Then she linked her arms in theirs, and, laughing and stumbling over the rough

land, they went from the allotment They stopped when they reached Biddle Street, and Peter, still in high fettle, cried, “We’ve come to the parting of the ways, my love,” and Mary, taking up his tone and mimicking his voice, said, “Goodbye.

Goodbye; we may never meet again! Ronald Colman, big picture, last Tuesday night. “ And as Peter and Mary laughed together again Alee said, You two should have your heads looked at.