Pack Up Your Troubles

by Anne Bennett

  Bridget was left in Alf’s care as Elsie climbed into the ambulance after the stretcher behind Dr Fleming, who also insisted on going. All the way to hospital, she prayed for Maeve. It would be all round the streets the next morning. In fact, if it hadn’t been dark as pitch, the neighbours would have been out gawping that night too. Still, when all was said and done, they weren’t a bad crowd and many, she knew, would be upset about what Brendan had done.

  She grasped Maeve’s hand, not knowing whether she could hear her or not, and whispered, ‘Hold on, Maeve, we’re nearly there.’ And the ambulance sped on through the night.

  TEN

  Maeve felt she’d fallen into the pit of hell, and she groaned with pain more intense than she’d ever experienced before. She felt as if she were on fire and closed her eyes again wearily. She heard a movement beside her, forced her reluctant eyelids back and tried to focus.

  And there, sitting in a chair at the foot of her bed, was a blurred image of Brendan. She didn’t know where she was or why Brendan was there, and she tried to remember. Everything around her was very white and she was unable to move any part of herself. She turned her head and saw that drips fed into one of her arms and the other was in plaster from shoulder to fingertips and a monitor bleeped above her head. She realised she was in hospital and wondered how long she’d been there and where her baby was.

  Brendan saw the flickering of Maeve’s eyelids and got to his feet.

  ‘Maeve?’ he said.

  Maeve saw him towering over her and she frowned. She was sure she was here because of Brendan! She couldn’t remember. She shut her eyes tight and tried to focus her mind. Suddenly it came back to her, the terror of that night, the beating she’d endured, and now the perpetrator of it was by her hospital bed.

  Brendan moved closer to her and she smelt the stink of him and even that set her teeth chattering. She opened her eyes again and saw his face inches above her own. ‘Maeve?’ he said again, and Maeve couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t stand any more and she opened her mouth and screamed. She screamed out all the petrifying fears that had trailed her through her shambles of a marriage and once she started screaming, she seemed to have no power to stop.

  Brendan jumped back as if he’d been shot and as the unearthly sounds reverberated through the hospital, doctors and nurses came running and Maeve heard Brendan blustering, ‘I didn’t touch her! I didn’t do anything! She just started!’

  Maeve saw him being led away and his voice got fainter and fainter as her screams got louder and louder and more hysterical, and she tried to thrash on the bed but was anchored by the straps holding her wrists so that the drips couldn’t be dislodged. She felt the bustle of staff all around her and with the prick of a needle she sank thankfully back into unconsciousness.

  The next time she came to, Elsie was sitting beside her bed. She tried to smile at her friend, but her face hurt. Everything hurt. She opened her dry swollen lips and murmured, ‘Elsie,’ and tears ran down her cheeks.

  ‘There, ducks, don’t you upset yourself,’ Elsie said, stroking her free hand. ‘They’ll put me out if they think I’ve made you cry.’

  Maeve knew she was right and made a valiant effort to swallow the lump in her throat. She wished the pain would stop. It made her feel so weak and there were things she wanted to know. First and foremost was the whereabouts of her baby, but forming words was difficult.

  ‘Bridget?’ she attempted, and though the sound wasn’t clear, Elsie knew what she was saying.

  ‘Bridget’s with me,’ Elsie said. ‘Has been since the first day,’ and then she added, ‘His mother came down and demanded to have the minding of her till you’re better. You know what that Lily Hogan is like. I told her to sling her hook in no uncertain terms, I’ll tell you. Told her she’d dragged her own kids up and she wasn’t laying a hand on wee Bridget.’ Elsie gave an emphatic nod of her head as she spoke and Maeve let go a sigh of relief. She wanted Bridget nowhere near her father or his people, and she knew Brendan would be staying with his mother.

  Maeve moved her hand but winced as the needles in the back of her hand stung her, and Elsie said, ‘They’re to get some goodness into you, love. Help you get stronger, like. The doctors went mad when they brought you in. They said you were malnourished. Lord, Maeve, I’ve never seen anyone so blooming thin. You looked like one of those heathens the Church is always going on about saving. I’d no idea you was so bad. Course, I’ve never seen you without your clothes covering you before, but when I helped the doctor clean you up, Jesus! Maeve, your arms and legs were like sticks. I could actually see your ribs sticking out, though they were black and blue where that bastard had kicked the shit out of you.’

  Maeve was too tired to answer and she was happy to let her friend talk.

  ‘Proper shook the priest up, you did,’ Elsie went on. ‘I fetched him, you know.’

  Maeve didn’t know and her eyes opened wide in surprise.

  ‘It was when I found you in such a state,’ Elsie said. ‘Alf went for the doctor and I went for the priest. He gave you the last rites.’

  Last rites! That gave Maeve a jolt. They were given to people who were dying.

  Elsie saw the consternation on her friend’s face. ‘The doctors kept going on about you having no stamina to fight anything,’ Elsie said. ‘It wasn’t only the beating they were worried about.’ Elsie gave her hand a pat and said, ‘You look proper washed out, girl, and no wonder. I’ll come and see you again tomorrow. You have some rest now.’

  Maeve slept and when she next woke it was evening time. The winter’s day beyond her window was dark and all the lights were on in the hospital, but around her she could hear the bustle of the tea trolley. Dr Fleming sat beside her.

  ‘Hello,’ he said when he saw her eyes were open. ‘I thought I’d pop in before evening surgery and see how you are.’

  Maeve concentrated hard and with difficulty, and slightly indistinctly asked, ‘And how am I?’

  ‘You’re not very well,’ the doctor said. ‘You’ve been pretty ill, Maeve,’ he said and added, ‘You don’t mind my calling you Maeve?’

  Maeve shook her head. She didn’t care what she was called. ‘The point is, Maeve,’ the doctor went on, ‘the thing to do now is to look to the future.’

  The future! Maeve wondered what he was talking about. She knew where her future lay and there were no options.

  ‘You don’t have to go back to him, that man, your husband,’ the doctor went on as if he’d read her thoughts. ‘No man has the right to treat a woman like your husband did.’

  Maeve wondered if the doctor was a Catholic, if he knew the power of the Catholic Church. Probably not. In his circle leaving your husband because he beat you might be considered a reasonable thing to do. Maybe even divorce in such circumstances could be considered. But in the streets she lived in, women just got on with it and particularly so if they were Catholic. Divorce was not recognised by the Church and was unheard of.

  She sighed and wondered if the doctor, who she could see was a kind man, would ever understand. She realised she probably owed him a lot of money. Elsie had told her he’d tended to her in the middle of the night. Maeve knew a house call, particularly at night, would be more expensive than a surgery visit.

  She couldn’t do anything about it now, not until she got out of hospital, anyway. She wondered, in her confused state, if Father Trelawney was still taking her money round and giving it to Elsie. She hated him. She partly blamed him for her being in hospital. Him and Father bloody O’Brien. She didn’t want Father Trelawney near her again, nor Brendan either. Until she had to return home, she wanted no reminders of them.

  ‘So, you just rest up,’ the doctor was saying. ‘Don’t rush to get better. There’s time enough.’

  Maeve tried to smile at him because he was being kind to her again. He got to his feet hastily. ‘I must be off,’ he said. ‘I hope I haven’t tired you out.’

  No, no, Maeve tried to say, but no sound came from he
r lips, and then despite herself, her eyelids shut. When she opened them, the doctor was gone and the ward was hushed and dark. Most patients were fast asleep and Maeve closed her eyes again.

  The next day, they tried Maeve on solid food, though the intravenous drips still stayed in. Runny porridge in the morning and mashed-up broth at dinner time, with custard for tea. Maeve had to stay lying flat on her back and so she was spoonfed by one of the nurses and had to drink from a spouted cup. She was glad that nothing more solid was attempted, because her mouth was tender. Her lips smarted as the food was spooned in, and her throat felt as if it had half closed up.

  The nurse told her some of her teeth had been loosened, but that they’d bedded down in her gums again. She felt them gingerly with her swollen tongue. But talking was a little easier.

  ‘Thank you,’ she told the young nurse after her teatime custard. ‘You must be very busy. If I could sit up I’d feed myself.’

  ‘Not yet awhile,’ the nurse said. ‘There’s damage to your spine, you see.’ She clapped her hands to her mouth. ‘Oh God, I’m not supposed to say anything to you,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The doctors are the only ones supposed to discuss conditions with the patients,’ the nurse said with a woebegone face. ‘I’m always forgetting. The matron will have my guts for garters,’ and she bit her lip nervously.

  Maeve’s senses were reeling. Damage to her spine? What damage? She told herself not to panic. She could feel her legs, feel them only too well. Sometimes, especially at night, they throbbed with pain. Underneath the bedclothes, she moved them gently slightly sideways and then up and down, gratified that she could, even if the pain was agonising as she did so.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she promised the nurse. ‘I won’t say a word. But you can do something for me too. Inform whoever you have to that I don’t want to see my husband while I’m in here, nor do I want to see Father Trelawney. Will you do that for me?’

  The young nurse said she would with pleasure. Most of the staff knew who had inflicted the injuries on Maeve Hogan anyway.

  She wished she’d included Lily Hogan on her list of banned people, for the next day, when she saw Lily walking up the ward, Maeve felt her insides quail. She lay in the bed and thought that if she’d borne a child who’d turned out like Brendan, she’d be ashamed. But she knew Lily wouldn’t be. And she wasn’t.

  Lily was a victim of her own husband’s violence, and Maeve knew she would consider it a part of marriage, and she guessed Lily would convince herself Maeve was somehow responsible for it.

  She wasn’t disappointed either, for after Lily had regarded Maeve dispassionately for a moment or two, she said, ‘You asked for it. You know that, don’t you?’

  Maeve gazed at her, not even surprised at her reaction, yet she asked, ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘A husband can’t take his wife running out on him without doing something about it. You must have realised; you’re not stupid,’ Lily said in the plaintive whine Maeve hated.

  ‘Yes, well now you know why I was not that keen to come back.’

  ‘Maeve, you married Brendan,’ Lily said. ‘You promised to obey him before God. You bore him children. You have obligations. You can’t just run away whenever you have the notion. And when you did, he had to teach you a lesson. It’s a husband’s right.’

  ‘He nearly bloody killed me!’ Maeve cried. ‘He married me for better or for worse as well, don’t forget. The children I bore him are from his seed, his responsibility, and yet he would have them starve and freeze to death. Dear God, Lily, do you have no shame?’

  ‘He’s my son,’ Lily Hogan said.

  ‘And as such, can do no wrong?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Lily said. ‘You don’t go about things the right way, that’s all. You antagonise him.’

  ‘No, I bloody don’t,’ Maeve said through gritted teeth. ‘It wouldn’t have mattered what way I went about the business that night. He was determined to beat me to pulp.’

  At the distress in Maeve’s voice a nurse came forward anxiously. She saw the anger in Maeve’s battered face and the tears that ran down her bruised cheeks from her bloodshot eyes and she said to Lily Hogan, ‘I’m afraid I must ask you to leave. The patient mustn’t be upset in this way.’

  Highly affronted, Lily Hogan left and Maeve settled down again. But her mind kept jumping about. Obviously Lily thought it was a wife’s lot to endure beatings, and either through upbringing, personal experience or both, had no reason to revise her ideas. Lily, by accepting violence throughout her own marriage, had passed on those values to her own five sons and two daughters. Brendan thought it was acceptable behaviour; it was what he’d grown up with.

  Dr Thomas, the hospital doctor, came to see Maeve the next day. She kept her promise to the young nurse and didn’t say a word about what she’d been told already, and listened intently as the doctor explained her injuries. As well as having lacerations and bruising throughout her body, one arm had been broken in two places, as well as a number of ribs. There was also damage to the kidneys and the spine, which could possibly correct itself with bed rest, he said. She also had a deep gash in one leg and her head, and both required stitching, while an X-ray revealed a hairline fracture of the skull.

  However, when the doctor enquired if she would be pressing charges, Maeve’s response was, ‘No, I couldn’t charge him if I wanted to. In the eyes of the law he has committed no crime. I thought you knew that. He is my husband and therefore thinks he has a right to chastise me.’

  ‘But he hasn’t. Surely you know that?’

  ‘What difference would it make if I did?’ Maeve said. ‘It will change nothing.’

  The doctor looked at the young woman aghast. He’d seldom seen or heard anything so monstrous and yet the woman spoke firmly, and though fear still lurked behind the eyes he had an idea that she knew exactly what she was talking about.

  ‘So, that’s that then!’ the doctor exclaimed in exasperation. ‘You just put up with it?’

  ‘That’s about the strength of it,’ Maeve replied, but inside she quailed at the thought of going back to the house to live with Brendan again.

  But there was little chance of going to live anywhere in the near future as one day slid into another and the weeks passed. Maeve was grateful to Elsie for caring for Bridget so well and looking after her house, even if she did urge Maeve to leave Brendan and go back to her mother every time she came. Maeve knew she wouldn’t do that again. She’d gone down that road once and nearly destroyed those she held so dear. So not only did she not even consider going, she refused to let her mother and those at home know what Brendan had done, because Maeve thought it was silly to worry them about a situation they would be unable to change. Elsie didn’t agree with her but knew it was pointless to argue. Elsie was just glad the post came after Brendan left for work. She always took the letters from Ireland to Maeve and if there was any money inside Maeve would give it back to her. At least Brendan never got to know about that. It would have been hard for Maeve if he ever got wind of it.

  Maeve had been in hospital three weeks when she asked to see a priest about receiving Communion. She was surprised to see Father Trelawney, as he should have been refused entry, and she’d specifically asked for the old parish priest, Father Roberts, to attend to her.

  Father Trelawney strode across the room and stopped by her bed. ‘Hello, Maeve.’

  Maeve let her eyes roll upwards. ‘I don’t want to see you, Father. I have nothing to say to you.’

  ‘Then let me speak,’ the priest said. ‘Please believe me when I say how sorry I am for what happened to you.’

  ‘What happened to me?’ Maeve spat out. ‘You talk as if I walked into a wall or was knocked down by a car. You know what happened to me as well as I do and by whose hand.’

  Father Trelawney knew only too well, and why, and he asked gently, ‘Why did you not say?’

  ‘Look at me, Father,’ Maeve cried. ‘This is
what happens when I defy Brendan and go against him in any way. And he thinks he’s perfectly justified to beat me senseless. As his mother pointed out, in the marriage service I promised to obey him. I took him for better or worse, and that, as far as he’s concerned, is that.’

  Father Trelawney bowed his head and Maeve guessed he’d said those words himself to more than one distraught wife who’d hammered on his door for advice.

  ‘That night I bought coal to prevent the child I’d given birth to from perishing with the cold. I also gave a ten-bob note to Elsie to keep for me – six and six for the rent and three and six off the arrears. If I hadn’t, Brendan would have taken nearly every penny back off me again.’

  ‘I had no idea this was happening, Maeve,’ Father Trelawney said.

  ‘Oh, I know that, Father,’ Maeve said. ‘Like you don’t know that I often had nothing to eat or drink in the house but cold water. I make sure I have a dinner for Brendan, for I’d be afraid not to, but I live on bread and dripping or scrape or just bread by itself. I’m hungry and cold so often it’s not worth talking of, and so were Kevin and Grace when they were home. We’re not the only ones who live like this, I know. I’m not the only wife and mother who skulks around the Bull Ring on Saturday night to pick up vegetables my father wouldn’t feed to the pigs and meat that’s on the turn but cheap. Then I go home with my spoils and hope I have gas enough to make a meal. That, Father, is how it is.’

  The priest was shocked at Maeve’s words, there was no doubt. Not only had Brendan broken his word that he would try to control his temper, but he’d also taken the money that he took around to the priest on a Friday night. Father Trelawney was disappointed because he liked Brendan and they’d sunk a good few pints in The Bell together, and most men there moaned about their wives.

  They were always saying he didn’t know when he was well off and he had to agree. He had a very comfortable life. Florrie McCormack, their housekeeper, was a niece of Father Roberts’s. She’d never been married and her sole purpose in life was caring and seeing to the priests in her care. She ran the house efficiently and well; their meals, even in wartime, were tasty, plentiful and never late; the house was spotless and their clothes collected from where they dropped them, washed, ironed and replaced in the right places. She never worried the priests over trifling matters and she never complained. Added to that, there was no worry over rent, or how to cope with the demands of a carping wife or a growing family, and Father Trelawney was glad of it when he listened to the men’s grievances. But this behaviour of Brendan’s could not go on. Difficult as it was he’d have to talk to him.