Masters of the House

by Robert Barnard

  “Oh, she’s not the type to do that,” he said airily. “She’s desperate to help. Even when she’s not very much.”

  “Oh, well, I suppose your dad knows what he’s doing, inviting her here,” said Mrs O’Keefe, clutching her handbag and getting up to go. “She’s not a permanency, is she?”

  “Oh, no. She’s got her own house, near Dublin. But her children are all grown up.”

  “Sounds like the motherly type,” said Mrs O’Keefe with a sniff. “I never went in for motherly instinct myself . . . though I want to do my best for you lot, of course.”

  The children stayed silent.

  “Well . . .” Mrs O’Keefe was palpably reluctant, pausing at the sitting room door. “I suppose I’d better be going . . . if you really don’t know when your dad will be home.”

  “We don’t.”

  “Now mind you tell him. I’ll be round to fetch him next Wednesday at six for a nice quiet drink in the Lamb. No need to hurry ourselves, is there, if you’ve got dear old Auntie Maureen to look after you. Your dad must be desperate for a pint and a bit of adult conversation.” They were in the kitchen again by now, and she was throwing these vaguely insulting scraps of conversation at them as they ushered her towards the back door. “Mind you tell him. Wednesday at six. And tell your Auntie Maureen I shall look forward to getting to know her.”

  When the back door was shut and—after a suitable interval—locked, Matthew leaned his head against the cold, distempered wall of the kitchen, conscious that his shirt was dripping with sweat around the armpits. He felt he had just gone through a long and vicious fight, one all the worse for not being a physical one. This woman was an opponent, and a dangerous one. When he straightened himself up his eyes were still damp from the emotions of strain and frustration. He said to Annie, “We’ve got to think what to do.”

  Again. They both realised they were now much deeper into the undergrowth with the advent of Mrs O’Keefe and the invention of Auntie Maureen. Mrs O’Keefe—that woman, as they henceforward called her between themselves—was clearly someone who would push herself into the house, would ask questions about everything and was already smelling rats. Auntie Maureen, having been mentioned to her, might need to be substantiated by further fantasies, either for Mrs O’Keefe or for others. And further fantasies meant further possibilities of being caught out.

  They slept on it and first talked about it next day in the five minutes they could walk together between dropping Greg and Jamie off at school and their own school gate, where they separated to join their different groups of friends.

  “I think we’ve got to refuse to let her in,” said Annie, taking up the subject without preamble the moment they could.

  “So do I. We can’t let her in over and over again and find new excuses as to why Dad isn’t at home. Quite apart from ‘Auntie Maureen.’”

  “‘Auntie Maureen’ we can drop. We only said she’d be here for a week or two.”

  “I suppose so. She’s dangerous. There’s probably people at church who know we haven’t got an Auntie Maureen.”

  “We could say she’s not a real auntie, just called that. A friend of Mother’s, perhaps. But I agree, she’s dangerous. It was brilliant, you inventing her, but we’ll have to drop her.”

  “That doesn’t help about that woman. We’ve got to find some way of stopping her visiting.”

  “The trouble is, I can’t think of a reason.”

  “Can’t you?”

  “I mean, Dad . . . went with her while Mum was pregnant. You’d think he’d be pleased to see her again.”

  “Would you? Then why do you think he’s like he is?”

  They stopped walking, and Annie looked at him.

  “Well, with Mum dying, and the baby . . . I mean, it sent him off his head. . . .”

  “With guilt. For having . . . done that with her while Mum was pregnant. He said once when I was there that he hadn’t enjoyed . . . it while she was pregnant. I bet it was then that that woman went all out to get him, and now he’s gone mad with guilt.”

  They started walking again.

  “I think you’re right. But what do we do?”

  “We never open the door again. Keep it locked and the chain up. Tell Greg he’s never to open it. When she comes we’ll just shout through it.”

  “But what shall we say?”

  “That Dad has forbidden us to let her in.”

  Annie thought again, then turned to him, smiling.

  “I like the idea of that.”

  In the days that followed, the plan was sophisticated somewhat. Both front and back doors were left permanently locked, and they shouted “Who is it?” before they opened up. There were few enough callers. If it had not been for the threat of Mrs O’Keefe, the children might have felt that interest in them and their affairs had all but died away. The milkman, coming for his money on Thursday evening, expressed his approval.

  “You’re careful who you open the door to, are you?”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “That’s very sensible. Dad not in?”

  “Not at the moment. He generally goes to see Father Coffey on Thursday evenings.”

  The milkman was not a Catholic, so he was unlikely to learn anything that contradicted this last statement. None of the family, in fact, had ever seen the new priest at St Joseph’s, and they tried to avoid members of the congregation. Annie had perceived the milkman as a danger, since he was the only person who called regularly at the house. She was pleased when he nodded unsuspiciously, took his money and walked away. She regarded her remark as another of those inspirations, though the fact was that both she and Matthew were getting better at lying.

  They had no doubt that that woman would arrive on cue, and the older ones were very tensed up on Wednesday evening. At five to six a car drew up in the road outside, and Matthew and Annie went to the kitchen. They positioned themselves close to the door and listened as the front gate clicked and high-heeled shoes came clip-clop down the path.

  The knock on the door was loud, authoritative. They left a second or two before they called out.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Carmen O’Keefe, Matthew. Come to take your father out for a treat.”

  That last touch enraged him. His voice came louder than he had intended.

  “He isn’t coming. He says that we’re never to let you into the house again.”

  There was a moment’s silence outside.

  “There’s been some silly mistake, Matthew.”

  “No, there hasn’t,” shouted Annie. “He says he never wants to see or talk to you again.”

  “Is your father there?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Let me in. I want to talk to him.”

  “No. He’s told us we mustn’t. He says he’ll never have anything more to do with you.”

  “Go away! You’re horrible!” This contribution came from Greg, attracted to the kitchen by the shouting. Annie felt he detracted from the seriousness of the occasion, and bundled him back into the front room.

  Again there was a moment’s silence.

  “Look, there’s some mistake here.”

  “No there isn’t.”

  “Your dad’s misunderstood something I’ve said.”

  “No he hasn’t. He says you’re disgusting. He says he’ll never have anything more to do with you as long as he lives. So go away and don’t come back.”

  A pause of indecision, then the heels, emphatic with indignation, clip-clopped back down the path and out through the front gate. The children stood looking at each other as they heard the car start up, turn in the drive, then charge out of the cul-de-sac which was Calverley Row.

  “We’ve won!” said Annie.

  “For the moment,” said Matthew.

  • • •

  But it did seem for a time as if they had scored a magnificent victory. Nothing more was heard of Carmen O’Keefe. They expected her to call or ring, but she did not. The only time the teleph
one rang, it was their mother’s brother in Ireland, and his interest was purely perfunctory: When he heard they were all right he said he would tell his sister and rang off with assurances that they could always call him if there was anything they needed. He had never had anything in common with Dermot Heenan and didn’t want especially to speak to him.

  So Mrs O’Keefe seemed to have gone out of their life as decisively as she had come into it. They thought about it and talked about it and came to the conclusion she must have realised from their words that their father was disgusted with himself over what he had done while his wife was so close to death, and quite naturally did not want to have anything more to do with her. Any danger that she might guess at the real consequences that the affair had had they put to the back of their minds.

  But they kept up their precautions. The door was always locked, and even if they were in the garden they locked the door from the outside for fear that she might arrive and simply march in and go upstairs.

  “It was like a prison,” said Matthew all those years later as he marched up and down the front room, the young, apparently confident manager of a business that was somehow managing to hold its head up during another terrible recession. “For a time after she’d come into our lives and then gone out it was like being in prison. We’d locked Dad away, but we’d locked ourselves away with him. I suppose that’s what prisons are: They lock up the keepers with the criminals.”

  “What I wonder at today is how well we did,” said Annie, calmly knitting away at some children’s clothes she had characteristically brought with her. “After all, we knew far less than twelve- or thirteen-year-olds know today. There’s far more sex on television nowadays—it’s sort of taken for granted, even in the hours when young children are watching. And of course Mum had kept us rather protected. Yet somehow we managed to hit on the right note to keep her away from us.”

  “What—you mean, ‘He says you’re disgusting’?”

  “Yes, that kind of thing.”

  “It must have been something intuitive—though of course we didn’t know the half. But it was the right note to strike. And it certainly kept her quiet for a time. Long enough for us to start coming out of our prison.”

  “If she’d been wise, she would just have kept quiet and kept away. If she had, everything would have blown over. Or at least we wouldn’t have been involved.”

  “But she wasn’t wise. Wisdom wasn’t in her,” said the wise-beyond-his-years Matthew.

  Annie nodded. She had a schoolteacher husband and two children of five and three. The events of 1979 were now an episode of past history, one she could talk about almost as if she had not been involved. For Matthew it was the shaping experience of his life.

  “She brought us face-to-face with evil,” he said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Asking Questions

  ALL THIS TIME, as the evenings began to lighten and the spring flowers blossomed and faded, the man in the smallest bedroom remained in much the same state of mental darkness. It became easier to get him to take food, as if he was resigned to continuing his own existence, and he sometimes had what could be called good days as well as bad ones: Then he might say something like “I should be doing something for you kids,” or “God knows how you’re coping without your mother.” But these moments of realisation that the situation in the house was exceptional, was out of kilter, were rare indeed, and mostly he lay or sat on the bed mumbling about punishment and sin. It was as much as they could do to prevent him becoming smelly, like a neglected dog.

  As the weeks dragged by and the feeling of being imprisoned grew, Matthew’s attitude towards his father changed: When he first suspected that he had been having an affair with the sensual, threatening creature who was now disturbing their security, he had felt a childish rage and disgust. How could he betray their mother like that? The inevitable daily contacts with the shambling mess matured and modified that reaction. He still felt contempt, but now it became tinged with compassion. The wrong he had done had brought on him a dreadful punishment. He said one day, “You shouldn’t blame yourself.” It was something his mother had sometimes said, for example, when a boisterous children’s game in a tree had led to a younger friend’s falling and breaking his leg. But Dermot had merely mumbled something that sounded like “Who else?” Matthew had shrugged and left the frowsty little room.

  Of friends there were now only school friends—children to talk and play with during school hours. Once they might have come home with the Heenan children after school or called at weekends. Ellen Heenan had loved having troops of children around her. Matthew and Annie made sure that didn’t happen now. “Dad’s got too much to do,” they said; “we don’t want to add to his burden.” Or sometimes, “We haven’t got over Mum’s death yet. It’s no fun in our house now.” Even children could realise they wouldn’t be welcome.

  “I don’t think she’s going to come back,” said Matthew to Annie one day in the kitchen, washing up tea things.

  “Nor do I. But I wish I knew.”

  “We can’t ask her to give us a signed oath that she won’t come round and bother us again,” Matthew pointed out.

  “I don’t mean that. I mean I wish I knew what she was doing and saying. About us.”

  Matthew nodded vigorously.

  “So do I. If she’s saying anything. Maybe she thinks the sensible thing is to keep quiet.”

  “Maybe. But she’s not a sensible person. I wish I knew. . . . In fact, I wish we knew a whole lot more about her. We hardly know anything.”

  “That’s a point. Not that I want to. But maybe we need to know about her. As a sort of weapon.”

  “That’s right. Because if she knew about . . . about here, she’d dob us in to the authorities just out of spite. Not because she cared, but out of spite.”

  The next day, later in the evening, as they talked together like any married couple with children in the hours after bedtime, Matthew said, “If we could go to church together, talk to some of the people we know there . . .”

  “We agreed we wouldn’t.”

  “If we could go together, it would give the impression that everything was all right at home.”

  “I suppose so. But what about the new priest?”

  “We could slip out the side door. A lot of people do if they’re in a hurry to get away. He won’t know everybody yet. There’s no reason why he should wonder who we are if we’re careful.”

  “No. . . . It’s not what we decided . . . but I would like to go to church. It’s what Mum would have wanted.”

  “I know. I keep thinking how we’re forgetting her.”

  “Yes. Jamie has forgotten her entirely.”

  They looked at each other, a little tearful.

  “I think we should go to church. Just the once.”

  “And try to find out about that woman afterwards.”

  “But who would look after the little ones?”

  “Greg will have to look after Jamie.”

  It wasn’t what either of them wanted, but they could not think of an alternative. They made it a very serious business—it was a first time, and a sign of their trust in him. They were both going to have to go to church—Greg accepted going to church as a normal part of life—and he would be totally responsible for his brother. They were both to stay in the living room with a selection of toys, but as a precaution all kitchen implements or utensils that could be shut away were, because they were sure that at some point one or other would want something from the fridge and go out there. Any little cuts or bruises Greg could deal with—sweets and elastoplast were left on the table—but if anything serious happened he was to run along to Mr Purdom or Mrs Claydon. But he was to try not to. As they left they waited to make sure Greg locked the back door, as he had been told to.

  It was funny to be back at church again. It was a ten-minute walk, and as they arrived there people were drawing up in cars or arriving on foot. Somehow it was both strange and yet normal to be part of tha
t throng again—strange because their mother was not with them, and people obviously felt a certain awkwardness with them, normal because the throng of people was there with a common purpose which they recognised and shared.

  “Hello Annie, hello Matthew, everything all right?” people said, looking at them closely and registering that they were neat and tidy, as they had taken good care to be.

  “Yes, everything’s fine. People have been very good. Dad’s at home looking after the littlies,” they said.

  “Never a great one for church, your dad,” someone said.

  “Not really, though Mum tried.”

  “People have been good, have they?” Mrs O’Hara said. “I’ve felt awfully guilty myself. . . .”

  “Oh, they’ve helped a lot,” Matthew said hastily.

  “Because someone was saying only the other day they hadn’t seen your dad since the day of the funeral.”

  “Oh? Who was that?”

  “I think it was Mrs O’Keefe. But she’s hardly ever here herself—not what I’d call a regular. Hardly a Catholic at all. I think she must have meant she never saw him at the shops or supermarket.”

  “They must just have missed one another,” said Annie.

  They slipped into St Joseph’s and took note of the people in the congregation whom they knew best. Mrs Wainwright was a good talker and a casual friend of their mother’s, and she was there towards the back of the church without her husband. They slipped into the pew beside her. She turned and registered the neat, conservatively dressed pair, Matthew serious, Annie smiling up ingratiatingly. Annie was a sturdy girl without any great pretensions to prettiness, but she could present herself attractively. She had gone to great pains to do just that. She had an end in view; and when she had that, she could show great flair and determination.

  “Matthew! Annie! This is a nice surprise.”

  “We thought we ought to come. It’s been a long time.”

  “Yes, it has. And your poor mother would have wanted you to come. Dad’s at home with the young ones, is he?”

  “That’s right. . . . Is that the new priest?”

  “Yes. I don’t know him at all well yet, but he seems to be very good.”