Masters of the House

by Robert Barnard

  “You don’t do ov—” Curtin began. Then he stopped. He was conscious of Matthew’s throwing him a quick, puzzled glance. “Yes, of course. I’m sure you’re right. Your dad will find the strength.”

  “Thank you for coming,” said Matthew, as the second car drove forward, and he walked down the steps and got into it, feeling very small and alone.

  The ceremony at the graveside was most terrible of all. When the car arrived at the churchyard, the driver directed Matthew to the newest part of the ground, where he had known his mother would be buried. The two coffins were already being lowered in, and Matthew dawdled over, conscious that other cars were arriving. He told Father Muldoon that his father couldn’t face the burial. Then he stood at the foot of the grave, trying not to look down, sensing a little knot of people gathering behind him. Father Muldoon read the brief words of committal, but it was as he scattered earth over the coffins that Matthew broke up. Now that he did not have to worry about his father, the terrible truth about what had happened to them suddenly overwhelmed him. Simple words hammered themselves into his head: We loved you, we’ve lost you. Consciousness of everything their mother had done for them and the love she had had for them filled him and brought with it a knowledge of the dreadful gap she left, a gap that he and Annie would have to strive inadequately to fill for the younger ones. But there was a gap in their lives, too, and there was no one to fill it for them.

  And another feeling followed—a sort of anger. I should not be here alone, Matthew thought. This isn’t something I should have to bear. We should be given support, not have to be giving it. And not hiding things, contriving, lying. His face crumpled, and he looked down as his father did into his chest. The weight on him seemed insupportable.

  A hand on his shoulder told him it was over. He righted his face, wiped his eyes, and walked back towards the car. Father Muldoon, with a lifetime of experience, judged it was best to leave him to himself. But as the little group around the grave broke up, Matthew, about to get into the limousine again, found that someone with less understanding than Father Muldoon had caught up with him. He heard a coarse voice behind him say, “I’m sorry your father wasn’t here because I did want to express our condolences.”

  Matthew turned to see a woman whom he felt he knew slightly—someone who occasionally came on Sundays to St Joseph’s. She was dressed in a dark grey suit and had on a purple hat which did not seem quite suitable. She was smiling encouragingly, but her ample figure seemed somehow intimidating rather than comfortable, her breasts aggressive pyramids through the white blouse. Matthew was disturbed by something about her which he could not quite put his finger on but which later, in bed that night, he was to identify to himself as something sexual.

  “Yes, Dad is very cut up,” he said, using Mr Curtin’s phrase.

  “Well, he would be, wouldn’t he? I expect you all are.” She smiled again, an overdone, uninviting smile. “Will you tell him specially that Mrs O’Keefe expressed her sympathy? Said if there was anything she could do . . .”

  “Mrs O’Keefe. Yes, I’ll tell him,” said Matthew, getting into the car.

  But as the car drove him slowly home, Matthew was not thinking about Mrs O’Keefe. He was remembering his brief words with Harry Curtin outside the church. Harry Curtin was liked by the Heenan children. He’d often dropped in on the house in Calverley Row when their father was working for him, sometimes bringing sweets, and had always been cheerful and listened to what they wanted to tell him. He’d been genuinely sorry when he had had to lay their father off. Matthew felt he knew him.

  And he was sure that what he had started to say when Matthew had mentioned overtime was “You don’t do overtime in a recession.” Or “You don’t do overtime when you’re about to be laid off.” Only he’d stopped himself just in time. Or not quite in time. Because Matthew felt quite sure that was what he’d been going to say.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Carrying On

  WHEN MATTHEW AND ANNIE came back to the house in Calverley Row for the last time, in the summer of 1993, he was a rising executive of a printing firm but uncertain about his future, considering a change of direction. Annie was a housewife, reluctantly working four mornings a week in a kitchen shop in Newcastle to help with the mortgage. They were let in by Jamie, and they settled down to wait in the sitting room, getting the same sense they always got of having stepped back in time. The fat, stuffed chairs and sofa were that bit shabbier, the wallpaper was that bit more faded; the only new things were the odd ornament or photo in a frame. One of these last showed Matthew being presented to the Queen at the opening of his firm’s new printing works in Northampton. But essentially it was the house in Calverley Row, just as it had been when they had become its masters in 1979.

  “How are the children?” Matthew asked, as Annie poured tea.

  “Oh, fine. Jeremy has had the measles, but he’s over them now. They’re both loving school. . . . Ted’s very good with them, but they’ll be missing me.”

  “Of course they will. Funny, isn’t it? Your having a second family, with Jamie not yet grown up.”

  “It’s not a second family, Matthew—it’s my first! My own. It’s all I ever wanted. They try to make you feel embarrassed about saying that these days, but it’s true. I’d have been a terrible career woman. I only go out to work because we need the money. . . . About time you started, Matthew.”

  “No,” said Matthew—not bleakly, but decisively. “I’ve done all that—been a parent, looked after kids. Having another family now would be like going back.”

  They were silent for a moment, remembering.

  “Incredible how we just took over, isn’t it?” Matthew said. “Took it all on, just like that.”

  “We didn’t have much choice,” said Annie. “At least, that’s how we saw it.”

  “It didn’t even occur to us that people were going to start asking questions about Dad.”

  “Oh, it did—quite soon. I remember we talked about it in this room. Talked about it and made plans about what we should do. I think most things that we could reasonably expect to happen we had plans for. We did a remarkable job. What happened was . . .” She stopped, her face troubled. “. . . was something that we couldn’t have foreseen.”

  • • •

  But that wasn’t entirely true as far as Matthew was concerned. In the days following the funeral, he was attacked at times by doubts and forebodings, mainly springing from those words of Harry Curtin’s on the steps of St Joseph’s. Of course, he did not foresee precisely what was to happen—that would have been impossible—but he was very conscious that there was something in the background he did not know, things that he did not understand, and he had a vague sense that those things—whatever they were—would catch up with them at some stage.

  He did not share those doubts and fears with Annie. This was partly because he saw no advantage in two people’s being burdened with worries instead of one. Partly he was assuming the male role in a Catholic marriage—a role his father had never quite managed to fill.

  Getting Jamie into a nursery school was easy enough. The church ran one at St Joseph’s primary school, which Greg attended, and where they were naturally anxious to help the motherless family. Either Matthew or Annie went along with the two youngest every day before going off to their own school, which was the state one on the other side of the Ring Road. There was a supermarket quite close to the house, across a field and a coppice; and twice a week one or other of the older children would walk over there with a list. National Assistance money came in each week, and there was no problem getting it from the Calverley post office—only making it do. Annie had been taught elementary cooking by her mother, and she had a repertoire of basic dishes which she started to teach Matthew. There were several old cookbooks from the early days of the Heenans’ marriage, and she went to those to start doing more difficult things: stews, roasts, even pies. They taught Greg to do easy things, so quite soon he took over the breakfast toast an
d sometimes peeled potatoes or carrots. When all else failed there were hamburgers—but not too often, Annie said severely. She was very like her mother. In fact, she took her place so readily that quite soon the two figures became confused in the younger boys’ minds.

  The washing presented no problems either: Annie had long ago mastered the machine. Further ahead they could not look. She taught Matthew how to use it because the more skills they shared, the more the jobs could be varied and boredom kept at bay. Housecleaning came low down on the list of priorities because they did not plan to let anybody into the house if they could help it. Annie decided on a blitz every first Saturday in the month. Keeping everybody clean and well turned out was much more important. That was what people saw.

  In the weeks after their mother died, one or other of them went to church on Sundays while the other looked after the smaller ones. Father Muldoon asked benevolently how things were going on at home, and they always answered brightly and mendaciously. But six weeks after their mother’s funeral, Father Muldoon was to take up his transfer to an Irish parish. This became the subject of a late-night discussion between Annie and Matthew.

  “There’ll be a new priest coming,” said Annie. “Someone who doesn’t know about us or about Mum and her death.”

  Matthew thought this over.

  “Father Muldoon might mention us to him.”

  “He might. Or leave some kind of note. But even if he does, it could be ages before the new priest asks about us. Perhaps he’ll just assume we’ve moved away.”

  “If we stopped going to church, you mean?”

  “Yes . . . I don’t want to. But if we don’t go, people won’t be reminded of us every week. They might wonder for a bit, but eventually they’ll probably assume we’ve moved away.”

  “They’ll see us around—in the supermarket, and that.”

  “Some will, now and again. I just mean that the less people see us, the less they’re reminded of us, the less danger there is of anyone starting to ask questions.” She added, as if she were serving up the wisdom of ages, “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  Matthew thought. Annie, sitting there putting the practical case, made him feel inadequate—the improviser rather than the planner. But she was quite right. Everything had to be thought through now.

  “I think you’re right,” he said at last. “And I think it would be best not to go to Father Muldoon’s last service next Sunday. There’ll be lots and lots of people there, so he won’t notice if we’re not. If he actually saw us, or one of us—”

  “It might jog his mind to mention us. That’s right. I don’t think we should go to church any more.”

  So Father Muldoon left St Joseph’s unfarewelled by the Heenan family. He had been a popular priest, the church was full, and everyone there was eager to take a personal leave of the man. He certainly didn’t notice the absence of the Heenans. But he was a conscientious man, and as a matter of routine he did leave a note about them with his occasional secretary for his successor. The successor was from the south, a young man bent on promotion, with very different ideas about pastoral care from his Irish equivalents. He read the note, but since he never saw the Heenans he never followed it up.

  The neighbours presented a different problem to Matthew and Annie. Not the immediate neighbours, for the Heenans had never been on more than nodding terms with them, and they were out at work all day. But in the little street of fifteen or so houses they had been on chatty terms with two families: the Claydons at number eight and the Purdoms at number four. Mrs Claydon had been their mother’s friend—not close, but the neighbour she would choose to gossip with of a morning, swap recipes with, tell the various ailments of her children to. She had been at the funeral. It would be natural for her to take an interest in Ellen Heenan’s children.

  Mr Purdom was their father’s friend. Not a drinking crony or anything like that. Insofar as he had friends of that sort, they were his workmates on the building site. But Mr Purdom had known their Aunt Lucy, took an interest when they moved into the house on her death, and was generally a comfortable, undemanding sort of chap that Dermot could borrow gardening tools from, give racing tips to or swap condemnations of the government with. He was one of those who might ask questions when he never saw Dermot Heenan. That was what they had to guard against.

  There was no question of their father’s being seen, that was for sure. There would be no more visits to church, and even a walk along the road seemed out of the question. He was more of a shambolic mess than ever—a muttering, weeping, shaking figure whom they sometimes forgot to keep clean and shaven because they had so much else to do. Matthew tried now and then to sit with him and talk. He’d try it for five minutes, but when he got no more than thick self-accusations, sobs, cries that he would be better off dead, he would give up and confine his attentions to the difficult business of getting food down him.

  There was no set pattern to his father’s instability. Sometimes he would say a sentence that surprised them by its clarity or disturbed them because they only partially understood it.

  “I never liked it, you see, when she was pregnant,” he said once, with disconcerting bluntness, “never liked doing it with her.” But it led to nothing, seemed to come from nothing except his self-lacerating meditations. In general he sank further and further into a world of his own, which meant that he could not be produced for the benefit of the real world of Calverley Row. Matthew and Annie knew in the back of their minds that he needed help—help of a kind they could not give him. But they never spoke of that.

  So when they did discuss the matter they agreed that the best thing to do was to keep him in people’s thoughts by reminding them of him and of how arduous his responsibilities now were. And that was what they did. Annie would go along to Mrs Claydon’s with a sugar bowl in her hand.

  “Dad says could you lend us a little bit of sugar till he gets to the shops? We’re right out, and the children do like sugar on their cornflakes.”

  Mrs Claydon went to get some, smiling a little at “the children.”

  “Don’t bother to return it. How are Greg and Jamie getting along? Are they beginning to accept it?”

  “Yes, they are. Dad’s got Jamie into the nursery school, so he can take any little jobs that might come up. Jamie loves it there, and it makes us all freer.”

  “Tell your dad if there’s anything we can do . . .”

  Matthew, coming home from school, passed Mr Purdom giving the front lawn the first mow of spring.

  “Dad did ours yesterday,” he said chattily. “He said he’s never done it so early.”

  “I know. I couldn’t believe that it needed doing. How is your dad? Is he coping all right?”

  “Oh yes. He’s got Annie and me to help him. I think he misses being at work, but perhaps he’ll be able to take a job when Jamie’s bigger.”

  “Tell your dad if there’s anything we can do . . .”

  So, in the neighbourhood, they gave a shadowy, bravely coping existence to a father who was becoming more and more of a human wreck in the little bedroom upstairs. For the two eldest it had the elements of a game; they had to restrain themselves from going to borrow things too often. It could give the impression that the family was becoming disorganised.

  “Just mention Dad casually,” said Matthew, “in passing.”

  That’s all they needed to do at school, where their father was barely known.

  “How’s your dad coping?” their form mistress would ask sympathetically.

  “Oh, fine,” they would say. “He’s learning all the time,” Annie would sometimes add.

  There was no danger of Jamie’s saying anything to arouse suspicion, but Greg had to be coached. “Dad does everything for us now,” they told him to say. To one kind teacher at his school he blurted out, “Annie’s our mum now,” before adding the standard piece about Dad. He was too young for the teacher to examine the two statements and wonder whether they were a mite contradictory.

  P
eople occasionally rang, because the people at St Joseph’s made up a caring little community. Luckily, they never compared notes and realised that it was never Dermot who answered the phone.

  One day, when Annie answered it, there was a hard, common-voiced woman on the line.

  “Oh, hello. That’s—is it Mary Heenan?”

  “I’m Annie.”

  “Oh, well, I’m just ringing to see that you’re all all right.”

  “Oh yes, we’re fine.”

  “Getting over the awful loss, are you?”

  “Oh yes, we are.”

  “Could I speak to your dad, do you think?”

  “Dad’s out. He’s very busy.”

  “Of course he is. Well, tell him Mrs O’Keefe rang. And if there’s anything I can do . . .”

  “We’ll let you know,” promised Annie, putting down the phone.

  The woman’s voice, which she said to herself was a pretend voice, made her vaguely uneasy. She didn’t mention the call to Matthew on the principle they both followed of not mentioning vague feelings of unease, only concrete things they could do something about.

  And so, for the children, life went on if not as usual, then with a good semblance of normality. Only Annie and Matthew felt that burden of responsibility, that sense of contriving, hiding and lying which seemed to signify the end of their childhood and sometimes made Annie long to be able to go to church.

  “It shouldn’t be like this, should it?” she said to Matthew one evening, tired by the long day of physical work and the nagging load of care. “It’s not the way things are meant to be.”

  And Matthew said, “No. But it’s the way things have got to be if we’re to stop people from finding out about Dad.”

  Always in their minds, then and later, was the question of how long things could go on like that.

  Even in 1993, when they sat in their old sitting room, listening to Jamie coping upstairs and running up and down the stairs with athletic grace, they speculated about how things might have gone on.