Mother’s Only Child (32 page)

‘If you want the truth,’ Ned said, ‘I am helping you because of that lovely wife and baby you have. They don’t deserve this. Do you think Maria could have stood the shame of being married to a gaolbird, or your child growing up in the shadow of it? I hope you have learnt a lesson from this.’

Barney didn’t answer and Ned narrowed his eyes. ‘Don’t be a bloody fool altogether. You have the chance of a new life in Birmingham. Grasp it with two hands, if you want to stay a free man. Accept the fact that your brother is lost to you for now, and unless you want to join him, you will do as he advises.’

Barney suddenly felt bereft as Ned’s words sank in. He was missing Seamus already. How he would manage years without him he didn’t know, because he had never had to do it before.

Maria registered herself with the same butcher, grocer and greengrocer that Martha used and found it a bit of a headache to jiggle her rations to make them stretch.

Martha had already had nearly six years of it and she showed Maria how to make things like sardine fritters and Poor Man’s Goose, which had never been anywhere near a goose and was made with liver. She had books of recipes she’d copied out from
The Kitchen Front
, which she said had been on the wireless every morning after the eight o’clock news all through the war. ‘We were burdened down with advice and recipes,’ she told Maria. ‘Every magazine and some newspapers had a food fact page and there were even food flashes in the cinema, so I was told. I used to listen to the radio doctor as well, because he’d tell you which foods were good for you and I wanted to rear healthy children.’

Maria could agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. She knew Martha would have done her level best, but she suspected that many of the names of the dishes were more appetising than the actual finished
product, when she examined the list of ingredients. There were completely meatless dishes like Mock Hare Soup, Vitality Mould, Vegetable and Oatmeal Goulash and Lord Woolton Pie, and others like Boston Bake, which had a little meat in it. There were even tips on how to make things like mock clotted cream, using dried milk and vanilla essence, Raspberry Snow and mock marzipan.

At least, though, there was extra milk on the ration for babies. At the clinic they could have free orange juice and cod liver oil to help keep them healthy. Maria and Martha would take the babies every week to be weighed. Maria found Martha had been right about the notice board too. By the end of the first week she was the proud owner of a crib, cot, pram, highchair and even a pushchair for when the child was older. Sean gave her a loan for these and said he would get the money from Barney later. Maria only let him do this because she had so little money in her purse, it was scary.

Barney was due to join Maria on Monday, 10 December, by which time Maria had been in Birmingham nearly a month. Sean left work early that day so that he could pick Barney up at the station. As the weather was raw, with sleeting rain, the family didn’t go out to meet him and so the first time Patsy saw him was when he walked into the family’s breakfast room.

She looked up from the table where she was puzzling over a maths problem and the handsomeness of Barney nearly took her breath away. When he smiled at her it was as if her heart had stopped beating for a moment or two.

Maria was annoyed with Barney. He flirted with women and always had. It was his way and he had a special smile he reserved for them, but surely he could see that he couldn’t begin flirting with Sean’s stepdaughter.

Patsy, unaware of Maria’s concern, smiled back. It transformed her whole face, as if a light was turned on. She was almost fifteen and, educated at a convent school, she had no knowledge of boys other than her brothers. The conversations in the school yard, though, revolved around boys and sex—what you should let a boy do to you, how far you could go. Those girls with older brothers were often very popular indeed.

But Barney was no spotty crass boy; he was a man, a very handsome one, and he was looking at her in a way that…well, like she was a woman. It made her feel funny inside and her face went all hot. And then, when he suddenly gave her a broad and suggestive wink, Patsy felt as if there were butterflies fluttering about in her stomach.

Maria was amazed that no one else seemed aware of anything wrong. She would have to talk to Barney about this. The girl was young and impressionable, and might read more into his flirting than there was.

This wasn’t the time to go into it, though. The table had to be cleared because the evening meal was about to be served. Over dinner, Barney told them all about Moville, what was happening and how he’d had to camp out in the boatyard for a few days because the tenants for the house in Moville wanted to move in before he was ready to come to England.

‘Never mind,’ Sean said. ‘You’re here now and can start work on Wednesday.’

Barney, who’d thought he wouldn’t start until after Christmas, was appalled. ‘So soon?’

‘Why not?’ Sean said, fixing Barney with a glare. ‘The devil makes work for idle hands, they say. And tomorrow you will have to go to the Council House and get yourself a ration book.’

Barney said nothing to this. At that moment Sally began to cry. Maria lifted her from the pram and sat down in an armchair with her.

Sean said, ‘You’ll likely see a difference in young Sally. A month is a long time at this age.’

‘Barney wouldn’t notice,’ Maria said a trifle bitterly. ‘He barely looks at the child.’

Barney, annoyed with Maria, said, ‘I’m just not a baby person, that’s all.’

Sean had noticed Barney’s indifference to the child. ‘Haven’t you found it different with your own?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Barney said. ‘Not really. I’ve no time for babies. They bore the pants off me, to be truthful, and as far as I am concerned it’s Maria’s job to rear the children.’

‘That’s a hell of an old-fashioned view today,’ Sean said.

Barney shrugged. ‘It’s how I feel. How I am.’

‘I agree with him, anyway,’ Patsy put in. ‘Babies are boring and the fuss everyone makes of them is sickening. I mean, what does our Deirdre do except eat, be sick and wee and poo all over the place?’

‘You don’t have to do anything to be loved,’ Sean said. ‘And babies—’

‘Don’t make me laugh!’ Patsy said scathingly. ‘I sure as hell have to do something. How often do you ask what mark I got for this essay and that exam?’

‘That’s because we are interested.’

‘Yeah, so you say,’ Patsy sneered. ‘What would you do if I just threw it all in the air? I get fed up enough to do just that sometimes.’

‘Patsy, this is silly.’

‘Yep, that’s what I am. Silly.’

Maddened at last, Martha burst out, ‘I’ll tell you what you are, girl, and that is damned self-centred. All this came about because of one comment Sean made to Barney and you managed to not only turn it around to discuss yourself, but complain how hard done by you are. Change the record, Patsy, for I’m sick listening to it.’

Patsy’s face flamed with embarrassment and she stood up, pushing back her chair so violently it tipped over. She took no heed of it, just glared at them all. ‘I hate you,’ she declared. ‘I hate you all, so there.’

When she’d left the room, slamming the door behind her and making Sally jump, Martha sighed and Tony let out a relieved, ‘Phew!’

‘Tony, haven’t I told you off about this before?’

‘Yeah, you have, but I don’t think you’re being fair,’ Tony complained. ‘You said we had to be honest and that is honestly how I feel. You feel the same or you wouldn’t have sighed.’

‘I’m not having any argument.’

‘You let Patsy argue plenty.’

‘That will do, Tony,’ Sean cut in. ‘Apologise to your mother, and I will apologise to Barney and Maria for that display of bad manners.’

‘No need,’ Barney said. ‘Isn’t that right, Maria?’

‘Of course,’ Maria agreed. ‘It’s fine, Uncle Sean.’

Later, when Rosie and Martha were washing up in the kitchen, the boys around the table doing their homework and Sean had retired to the sitting room to listen to the news, Barney crept up the stairs and knocked quietly on Patsy’s door.

‘Go away!’

‘It’s me. Barney.’

He heard the drag of her feet and then the door was opened a fraction. He saw tear trails on her face, her eyes were brimming and her hair was tousled. The effect was very provocative, the more so because Patsy would be unaware of it.

Sean’s stepdaughter reminded him of a little girl he’d had a dalliance with in Dublin. She was about the same age, but knew what it was all about. He’d like to bet Patsy could be a little goer too, with the right teacher.

‘What do you want?’ Even Patsy’s voice, husky with tears, sounded incredibly sexy.

‘Can I come in?’

Patsy shrugged, but opened the door wider.

‘I just wanted to say I know how you feel. How angry you get inside,’ Barney said as he sat uninvited on the bed and pulled Patsy down beside him.

‘Why do you?’

‘I used to feel the very same.’

‘I say things because I am mad…I don’t always mean them.’

‘I hope you didn’t mean what you said tonight,’ Barney ventured. ‘You said you hated everyone. Did that include me?’

‘Oh, no, not you.’ Patsy’s eyes were shining with hero worship.

Barney allowed himself a small smile of triumph. This girl would be a pushover. He slipped his arm around her and said, ‘I would like to be your friend, Patsy, would you like that?’

‘Oh, yes, Barney.’

‘We must keep it to ourselves. The others wouldn’t understand.’

‘No, of course they wouldn’t.’ Patsy said.

‘Anyway, Sean has his own child now and he’d never feel the same for a stepdaughter as one of his own,’ Barney said, feeding Patsy’s fears.

‘Do you really think that?’

‘Stands to reason. Now they have Deirdre, they probably see you as a nuisance.’

Every slight and injustice flashed through Patsy’s brain and she knew Barney spoke the truth. She leant against him, suddenly feeling lost and cold, and was very glad he was there. Cuddled into Barney, she remembered how special she had been to her daddy and how he had called her his princess.

When he died, she had wanted to die too. Her mother was so upset it had been her grandparents who had helped her get through that awful time until they were all blown up with a bomb. She decided then that no-one else would ever have a piece of her heart. And they hadn’t for years, till her mother met Sean. As she got close to him she grew to hate the way he’d go on about Maria. Because he could remember her from when she was born, Patsy worried that he’d think more of Maria than her and had taken a dislike to her when she was over for the wedding.

But she went away again and life went on as before
for a while. Then Sean and her mother told her they were having a baby. She had been disgusted. Fancy old people like them doing things like that! God. She was too embarrassed even to tell her friend Chloë at first. Even before Deirdre had been born she had felt pushed out. The way they went on, you’d think that there had never been a baby born before.

And now this wonderful handsome man had come to comfort her and say he wanted to be her friend. It was incredible and she was overwhelmed with his understanding of just how she felt.

Barney could feel himself becoming aroused at the nearness of Patsy’s young, nubile body. He stroked her hair as he said, ‘Anyway, now you know they don’t care about you, you haven’t got to do as they say. But, this is the clever bit. You have to pretend that you do. To get more freedom, you have to convince them that you are a model daughter. What do we care what they say or do? We can laugh at them behind their backs and we have our little secret they can do nothing about.’

It sounded terribly exciting the way Barney described it. Then he suddenly kissed her lips and got to his feet, saying, ‘I had better go before I am missed.’

She wanted to beg him to stay, but knew he was right.

Barney, smiling, was cautious as he went out of Patsy’s room, but there was no one around. Downstairs, he was sitting before the fire reading the paper when the women came in from the kitchen. The boys were still bent over their homework and Sean hadn’t emerged from the sitting room. So far, so good, thought Barney.

When Maria saw the state of Barney when he came in from work that first day, she felt sorry for him. He looked completely exhausted. He also stunk of rubber. Black dust was ingrained in his skin, coating the lines on his face, encrusting his hands, caked beneath his nails and to his scalp.

‘Sean used to be the same,’ Martha said to Maria as she heated water for Barney’s wash. ‘Now that he is maintaining the railway that runs alongside the road through the Dunlop, he still gets dirty, but it’s like normal dirt, not like the muck from rubber. It’s why they get decent wages, I expect.’

‘I suppose,’ Maria said. ‘I’ve never seen Barney look so tired either.’

‘He’ll pick up the hang of it in no time, you’ll see,’ Martha said. ‘He won’t be so tired then.’

Maria wondered if Barney would ever stick at the Dunlop factory long enough to pick up the hang of it. Well, if he didn’t, she thought, then he’d have to do some other line of work. She tolerated a lot of Barney’s behaviour, but no way would she stand for him returning to a life of crime. She thought the longer they kept Seamus and the others in prison, the better she would like it.

The following Saturday morning, at Barney’s suggestion, Patsy offered to mind both babies if Maria and Martha would like to go into town that afternoon. They were delighted, although neither could be away long as they were breastfeeding.

‘We’ll go down the Bull Ring,’ Martha declared.

Maria was dying to see the place she had heard so
much about, although she thought Erdington marvellous, and especially the market.

‘What about you?’ Maria said to Barney that morning when he came into the bedroom as she was feeding Sally. ‘Will you be going to the match with Sean and the lads?’

‘No, not this week,’ Barney said. ‘I have to see a man in the Cross Keys pub.’

‘Cross Keys, where’s that?’