Mother’s Only Child (31 page)

After the meal that evening, Sean suggested going for a pint and Maria was surprised because her uncle never went out the night before he left. When she commented on that, Sean said, ‘I’m not leaving tomorrow after all, if that’s all right with you. I sent a telegram to Martha while I was at the shop, telling her of the change of plan.’

Maria was pleased. ‘Uncle Sean, you can stay as long as you like.’

Barney said nothing. He hadn’t liked the way Sean had been looking at him, or the brusque way he had spoken to him all through the meal, though Maria appeared to notice nothing amiss. Now to suggest a drink and say he didn’t intend leaving when he’d planned—the whole thing looked fishy to Barney.

And he was right to be suspicious. As soon as Sean had set the pint in front of him on a table in a quiet corner of the pub, he let him have it. He told him in a low but very firm voice that he knew all about his illegal dealings in Moville and of the time he spent in Dublin, and he was shocked and disgusted with him.

‘I wouldn’t give you house room at all if it wasn’t for Maria,’ he said. ‘But there will be no second chance if you go to the bad again. You have put my niece through the mill one way and another. When I return to Birmingham, she is coming with me, for I am not leaving Maria here a minute longer than necessary. And if you know what is good for you, you’ll put no obstacles in our way.’

Barney knew exactly what he meant and he also knew who had put Sean wise: the two witches from the shop had really stirred the shit. He knew Maria would have told Sean nothing, being too ashamed. Sean had the upper hand for the moment.

That night in bed, with the unaccustomed beer causing his head to spin, Sean hoped he wasn’t taking Maria from the frying pan into the fire. He wondered what reaction there had been to the telegram he’d sent to Martha. He remembered the scene a few days earlier when he’d told the children he had offered Barney and Maria a home when Sam should breathe his last.

Patsy had clearly felt betrayed by her parents—Sean in particular.

She stood up, leaning her hands heavily on the table. ‘Tell me that’s not true.’

‘It is true. Don’t be so silly,’ Sean admonished. ‘Am I likely to say it if it isn’t true?’

‘How could you think of inviting her here?’

‘Patsy!’ Martha said. ‘What on earth has got into you?’

‘Nothing has got into me,’ Patsy screamed. ‘It’s her. I hate her.’ She pushed her face close to Sean’s and sneered, ‘Hear that? Your poor, precious Maria—I hate her.’

‘That will do!’ Martha snapped. ‘Go to your room!’

Patsy was clearly too angry to stay. She gave her mother and Sean one glare before storming out of the room, slamming the door so hard it shook, and pounded up the stairs.

Tony glanced from his mother to Sean and then Paul, before saying, ‘Phew! Thank God she’s gone.’

‘That sort of thing doesn’t help.’

‘Nothing helps,’ Tony said. ‘She’s a mental case, a complete fruitcake.’

‘Tony!’

‘It’s all those brains, gone to mush in her head,’ Tony went on, unabashed. ‘Don’t do you no good anyroad, I don’t think, brains.’

‘Tony, I shan’t speak to you again. Haven’t you any homework?’

‘Just reading.’

‘Well, go and do it, for heaven’s sake, and give us some peace. What about you, Paul?’

Paul pulled a face. ‘I’ve got to find out all about St Paul. Miss has given me a book about him.’

‘Off you go then,’ Martha said. ‘That will keep you busy. St Paul was quite a character.’

Paul slid from the chair and went upstairs.

The baby, who’d been lying asleep in the pram, had been disturbed by Patsy’s slam of the door. She began to cry.

‘Oh God,’ Martha said, exasperated, getting to her feet, ‘I honestly don’t know what’s the matter with our Patsy. She’s been difficult for weeks, but that performance tonight beats the lot and now Deirdre is awake and might take ages to settle.’

‘What has she against Maria anyway?’ Sean asked, puzzled, as Martha hauled the baby from the pram and held her against her shoulder. ‘She hardly knows her.’

‘It’s not just Maria, it could be anyone,’ Martha said. ‘I told you before the wedding, it’s anyone that takes your attention away from her. She’s jealous and she’s been worse than ever since I’ve had Deirdre.’

‘Well, going on like this is not going to make me love her more,’ Sean said. ‘In fact, the opposite is the more likely. And as for spending time with her, I think I’d rather share the room with a sabre-toothed tiger.’

‘Me too.’

‘The blokes at work say all teenage girls are like this today.’

‘God, if I’d have said half the things she gets away with to my mother, I’d not be here today,’ Martha said. ‘She’d have killed me stone dead.’

‘Maybe that’s where we went wrong,’ Sean mused. ‘Too keen to make allowances. But I can’t write and tell Maria now that she’s not welcome.’

‘No,’ Martha said. ‘No, you can’t, and it wouldn’t be true anyway. I’m looking forward to her coming and the boys really like her. It will be a long time, Sean, before I refuse to help someone because of some whim of a selfish child.’

‘What about Patsy?’

‘What about her?’ Martha said. ‘She’ll have to like it or lump it. Don’t worry so much, Sean. Maria is a big girl now and well able, I’d say, to cope with a teenage girl and her fancies.’

‘Aye,’ Sean said, leaning across to give his wife a kiss on the cheek. ‘You’re right as usual, and I think Deirdre has dropped off again. You can put her back in the pram now.’

Although Maria was glad to be going with her uncle—which she now knew Dora and Bella had arranged—she was very sad to be leaving the village.

‘It’s no wonder,’ Dora said consolingly. ‘You’re
leaving behind all you’ve ever known, and for a life so totally different that it is bound to feel strange at first.’

‘Aye,’ Bella agreed, ‘and I’d say you are almost bound to feel homesick. But you won’t be the only one to leave these shores for a better life.’

‘I know,’ Maria said. ‘But oh, how I will miss the pair of you.’

Bella held Maria tight. She didn’t have to speak, though she couldn’t have spoken anyway, for she was choked with emotion.

Con was driving Sean and Maria to Derry in a car borrowed from a neighbour. They were to catch the night train from there. Maria was surprised and moved to see how many had braved the icy wind and raw night air to gather in The Square and wish them Godspeed.

‘You shouldn’t have come out, Dora,’ Maria admonished the older lady, tucking the scarf inside her neck more snugly.

‘Maria, you leaving…well, it’s like losing one of our own,’ Bella said. ‘We had to come and see you off.’

‘Ah, don’t, Bella,’ Maria said, as the tears slid down her cheeks.

Con said gently, ‘It’s better if we get going, Maria, before these good people stick to the ground altogether.’ Maria saw the sense of what Con said and she climbed into the car beside Sean. Without another word they were on their way.

Maria found it was far nicer travelling with someone than alone, especially a lovely man like her uncle. It
seemed no time at all before they reached Dun Laoghaire.

It was still dark when they boarded the boat so they couldn’t see that the sea was like a raging torrent, but they felt the boat listing from side to side even before it had left the harbour. Maria felt her stomach tighten as she remembered how sick she had been last time. This journey was little different. The boat was pitched and tossed in the turbulent water, and she was glad she had her uncle there to mind the baby.

Later, when her stomach was emptied at last, Sean insisted Maria try to rest. Wearied by sickness and sheer tiredness, she didn’t argue, but lay across the bench with her head on her uncle’s lap, and slept until the boat docked at Holyhead.

It wasn’t until they were in the train that Maria allowed herself to think of Patsy and her previous animosity towards her, but she dismissed her apprehensions. Patsy had been a little younger then and perhaps not so sure of Sean as she was now. It would be almost two years since they had met and she was sure—well, almost sure—that this time things would run much smoother.

This time, the whole family were out to welcome them, even Martha, standing on the steps and holding the baby. She came down to kiss Maria, and they compared and enthused over each other’s babies, while the boys cavorted around Maria, catching up the bags and cases excitedly.

Once more Patsy stood apart and Maria saw she had emerged from the gawky child to a very well-developed and beautiful girl on the verge of womanhood. She was
tall and slender, with a lovely figure. Her hair, as dark as Maria’s, was wavy and fell just past her shoulders, held back from her face with decorated combs. Her eyes, though, were her best feature, so large and dark, and ringed with long black lashes. Maria felt sorry that they were at that moment filled with resentment. Her rosebud mouth, pulled into such a sulky pout, caused lines to form at the side of it and at each side of her nose, which was pinched in with open disapproval. Maria knew that, just like nearly two years previously, the girl begrudged her presence there.

She was at that moment too tired to care. Seldom could Maria remember being so tired—almost too tired to eat the meal Martha put in front of her. Later, as she fed the baby, Sean said, ‘When you’ve done, why don’t you go on up, Maria? The bed’s all ready for you.’ ‘Oh, but the dishes—’

‘I wouldn’t let you help with the dishes anyway,’ Martha said firmly. ‘And Sean’s right, you look proper washed out. I’ve made up a drawer for Sally to sleep in for now, but we will get something more suitable in a day or two.’

‘A drawer is fine, honestly.’

‘Well, she can’t stay in it indefinitely,’ Martha said. ‘But don’t worry, there is a notice board at the clinic and there’s always baby equipment advertised.’

‘Well, I’m sure Sally will be more than happy in a drawer tonight,’ Maria said. ‘And I am so tired I could sleep on a washing line.’

‘Will Sally sleep all night?’ Martha asked.

‘I don’t know. She’s just begun to do that, but I’ve probably upset her whole system. Does Deirdre?’

‘Like Sally, she’s just started to,’ Martha said. ‘Not like the boys. Tony was waking at night until he was nine months old, and even Paul was well over six months. Greedy, see.’

‘Yeah, and nothing’s changed,’ Patsy said disparagingly.

‘Don’t start,’ Martha warned Patsy. ‘If you have enough energy to fight, young lady, you have enough to give me a hand, so start collecting the plates up.’

Sean had gone to work and the children to school when Maria came down to the kitchen the next morning.

As she fed and changed the baby Martha said, ‘You need to get an identity card and a ration book, and a special baby’s one for Sally. It wouldn’t hurt either to put your name down at Bush House, for a council house, you know.’

‘Yes,’ said Maria. ‘But ration books. I thought—’

‘You thought, with the war over, rationing would be out the window now?’

‘Aye. Something like that.’

‘Lots of people thought the same way,’ Martha said. ‘But what has changed since the war really?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I know there is no longer any blackout, no bombs, but the men are only being demobbed slowly, so they might avoid the problems they had last time when the “Land fit for heroes” had only poverty to offer their serving soldiers and their families,’ Martha said. ‘We still have an army of occupation in Germany—that might go on for years.

‘Then, lots of factories making other things, even food stuffs, were turned over to manufacturing munitions—like Cadbury’s, where they were putting cordite in rockets rather than soft centres into chocolate. And they slaughtered hundreds of hens at the beginning of the war to save on food stuffs, so rationing might go on for years yet. If you don’t get a ration card pronto you won’t be able to get any food. As today is Friday, we’re daren’t leave it because they won’t be open again until Monday.’

‘So where do we have to go?’

‘The Council House in the town. We’ll have to take the two babies with us.’ Deirdre, upstairs in her cot, chose that moment to begin to cry, and Martha said, ‘Will you listen to that? She’s woken just in time for our little outing.’

Barney contacted Ned the day after Sean and Maria left. He wanted to speak to the man anyway—not just about the boatyard, but also to see if Ned had any news of his brother.

‘They come up for trial two weeks before Christmas,’ Ned told Barney, a couple of days later. ‘I’ve been to see your brother and he said to tell you to keep away. No one has mentioned your name in connection with any of this—that was your brother’s doing—but the Garda aren’t daft altogether. They know you’re involved somehow. Apparently, Seamus heard the screws talking and they were certain you’d turn up for the trial and were intending to arrest you then.’

Barney felt as if an icy finger was trailing down his spine. ‘Arrest me? What for?’

‘Do they have to have a reason?’ Ned asked. ‘It could just be because they don’t like the look of you. Anyway, according to Seamus, if once they get you in there, with the endless questions they fire at you for hours, one taking over from another, you’re ready to swear that black’s white and will admit to anything just to get them to stop.’

‘So, what am I to do?’

‘Stay here.’ Ned advised. ‘Or better still, hightail it to Maria’s uncle’s place as soon as you can, and certainly well before the trial. It’s unlikely they would follow you there. As for the boatyard, you know I want it and the price we agreed on. As it is a cash sale, we don’t need solicitors and all to make money out of it.’

‘So Seamus doesn’t want me at the trial?’

‘What he wants is to keep you out of prison,’ Ned said. ‘I’ll go along, if you like, and tell you the outcome, though it will likely make the papers, which is one more reason to be well away from here by the time the news breaks. I know from experience that mud sticks, and in a little place like this…well, I don’t have to spell it out for you, I’m sure.’

No, he didn’t. Barney could imagine it all. He shook hands with Ned.

‘I don’t know why you are doing this,’ he said, ‘but I’m grateful.’