Masters of the House

by Robert Barnard

  “Oh yes. No question,” she said, slowly and explicitly. “I’ll not let you be taken into care.”

  It was very comforting—the most wonderful relief. Annie and Matthew looked at each other and smiled.

  “How shall we manage about bedrooms?” asked Matthew.

  “Well, we’ll have to manage, won’t we? Perhaps we’d better not make any changes for tonight—the little ones won’t want too many strange things happening at once. Is there a good sofa anywhere?”

  “There’s one in the sitting room. And there’s an old sofa-bed in the dining room that used to be Aunt Lucy’s.”

  “You have some relatives, then?”

  “No, she’s dead,” said Matthew. “She left us this house. All the relatives we have are Mum’s in Ireland, and they don’t care, though they pretend to.”

  “Well, let’s have a look at that sofa-bed, then, just for tonight. Then I’ll ring my Rob and tell him I’ll not be home. Maybe you can find me an old nightie of your mother’s.”

  So that was how things sorted themselves out. They pulled the old sofa out to make a bed for her, sneezing at the dust that months of neglect had allowed to accumulate. “We’ll have a good hoover round tomorrow,” said Mrs O’Keefe. Then they fetched sheets and blankets and pillows down from the airing cupboard upstairs. They got Greg and Jamie in from the garden, and Mrs O’Keefe took them upstairs to wash them and put them to bed. When they were in their pyjamas she told them to say goodnight to their father. She stood behind them in the doorway as reluctantly they did so, getting no more than a grunt in reply. Dermot Heenan looked at Mrs O’Keefe without comment or curiosity and, confused, she shut the door and shooed the children to their room.

  It seemed odd to Matthew and Annie not to have the children to put to bed. When they were settled and Mrs O’Keefe came down again, she saw at once that they were at a loose end.

  “I bet your schoolwork will have suffered with all this,” she said. “We’d better make that the first priority over the summer: catching up. And you’ll start tomorrow.”

  “Yes, Mrs O’Keefe,” said Annie.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” said Mrs O’Keefe. “What you’re to call me, I mean. At the moment it’s the name of a ‘horrible woman’ for you, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said the children in heartfelt tones.

  “I think Auntie Connie’ fits the bill, don’t you? I know Annie and Connie makes us sound a bit like a music-hall act, but we’ll get our tongues round it in time.”

  The children agreed that “Auntie Connie” sounded fine. The new auntie then went into the hall and phoned her son. They heard her say that something had come up—“a bit of an emergency”—and that she’d be sleeping here for a bit. Could he pack her things and bring them round to Calverley Row the next day? She then lowered her voice but misjudged it, and they heard her say, “No, there’s no danger of meeting him.”

  Then she came back to the sitting room, and they all watched a bit of television. “Study and revision tomorrow,” she said, as she packed them off, earlier than of late, to bed. “Two hours a day over the summer and you’ll soon catch up.”

  Annie slept wonderfully well. It was the sleep of utter relief, at a burden having been lifted off her shoulders. The future was unclear, but somehow, she knew, they were going to remain a family.

  Matthew’s sleep was more troubled. In fact, it was a long time before sleep came at all. He heard the lights being switched off downstairs and the house settling into total silence, and still he lay staring into the darkness. He was troubled by what Mrs O’Keefe . . . what Auntie Connie had said about his father’s needing medical attention and not getting it, troubled about her comment that in judging him so harshly he was playing God. It was true that before all this, Dad hadn’t been a bad father at all—easy-going, generous and a lot of fun. There had always been laughter when he had been around. And yet for that one lapse Matthew had been willing to condemn him utterly, cast him off his pedestal, break up the image. Why had he been so unforgiving?

  And the accusation of playing God made him think of Carmen O’Keefe and burying her body. Had he played God there, too? Was that another mistake they were going to have to undo?

  No! he told himself fiercely. That woman was going to stay buried. Better for all of them so—for the children, for Dad, for Auntie Connie, for Rob O’Keefe.

  After midnight he dropped off to sleep, and when he awoke it was to a household of which he was no longer in charge.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Back to normal

  MATTHEW AWOKE to the smell of frying bacon. His nostrils almost twitched under the sheets at the delicious unexpectedness of it. When he went out onto the landing, he found Annie and Jamie in the bathroom; and the two elder ones exchanged the sort of looks that their recent complicity had made so frequent: looks that did not need words added to them. This one said all sorts of things like, “Just like old times” and, “We’re not having to do it ourselves” and, “We’re free at last.” It was Greg who ran downstairs shouting, “Fried breakfast! Yippee!” but he put all their feelings into those simple words.

  “Now, you’re not to think you’ll be getting this every morning,” said Mrs O’Keefe, as she took warmed plates from under the grill and began dishing out. “I know as well as anyone that wouldn’t be good for you. But on Sundays . . .”

  They all pulled back chairs and sat at the table, looking at her raptly.

  “We’ve just been having cereals and toast,” said Annie, making an advance towards friendship and intimacy—an intimacy that involved complicity as well. “But this is wonderful. Mum used to cook us a proper breakfast on weekends.”

  Annie suddenly caught sight of little Jamie, looking at Mrs O’Keefe with his brow wrinkled; and she knew with certainty that he was about to ask, “Who are you?” She jumped in quickly with, “Now, Jamie, you’ll just have to wait till Auntie Connie has done yours.”

  There was a pause for thought, and then, “Auntie Connie,” repeated Jamie, as if this solved his problem.

  “That’s right,” said Mrs O’Keefe, turning round and smiling. “We talked it over last night, what you should call me, and that’s what we decided on. Auntie Connie.”

  “Auntie Connie,” said the two younger ones.

  “You can tell people I’m a friend of your Auntie Maureen’s, and I’m here to look after you till your dad is all right.”

  This was a new idea to Greg.

  “Is Daddy going to get well?” he asked.

  “Well, we’ll surely hope so, won’t we? Sick people usually do get well, don’t they?” She turned and began putting the plates before them. “I’m going to make a start today by arranging for his doctor to come round.”

  They all took up knives and forks and began tucking in joyously.

  “His doctor’s in a group,” said Matthew, his mouth full. “I think they only have emergency calls on Sundays.”

  “Does the doctor go to St Joseph’s?”

  “Oh yes. It’s Doctor Maclennan.”

  “Then I”ll ring him up before he goes off to mass. If I can’t speak to him I’ll speak to his wife. I’m sure she’ll understand how important this is.”

  Breakfast was wonderful, with unlimited toast and marmalade, though Auntie Connie said she didn’t like that awful sliced stuff, and she’d have to look around for some real bread somewhere. She managed not to make it sound like a criticism. When they were finally replete, Annie and Matthew said they’d wash up; and after a moment’s thought, Auntie Connie nodded agreement. She went into the hall and consulted a telephone directory; and after they’d finished running the water for the washing up, the children heard fragments of conversation.

  “No, there’s no question of his coming to the surgery. Even if I could get him there, it would just make a spectacle of the man. . . . I’d say it was some kind of mental breakdown. . . . No, very serious. . . . Well, the children have been looking after him, bless their hearts. B
ut now I’m here, and I’ll not be going home till he’s back to health. . . .”

  Once again Annie and Matthew looked at each other. Then they went on with the washing up. When Auntie Connie came back to the kitchen, she looked very pleased.

  “He’ll be coming round tomorrow afternoon. That’s the first step taken, isn’t it? Now, I don’t suppose you children have been going much to church, have you?”

  They both shook their heads solemnly.

  “Not much,” said Annie. “We have been, but not much.”

  “Afraid people would ask a lot of questions, were you? Well, we’ll have to get you all back to regular churchgoing, but perhaps we’d better let things settle down for a week or so first. Then you can answer people’s questions confidently. And I can’t go today, at least not this morning, because my Rob will be coming round with my things. So I think you two should get down to your schoolwork and start revising all you’ve done or should have done since your poor mother died. Don’t say you haven’t fallen behind, because I know you must have. It’ll be six months’ work; and if you give it a couple of hours every day over the summer, you should be up to date by the end of the holidays.”

  It was comforting to be told what to do. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so pleasant forever, because Auntie Connie obviously had very definite ideas, and rather old-fashioned ones. But for the moment it was a good feeling; and every time she told them what to do, they realised that now they didn’t have to make all their own decisions or decisions about Greg and Jamie.

  Rob O’Keefe came round at about eleven o’clock. He had a long conversation with his mother in the kitchen, and then he was led through to be introduced to them, bringing with him a wonderful aroma of roasting pork. He was a big, strong-boned man with large hands and a protruding chin. He had lost his Irish accent and spoke very much as their father did, when he spoke at all. He looked to be in his early thirties, but his fair hair was already thinning. He was very ill at ease, and when he’d said he had seen them sometimes at church with their mother he shuffled and didn’t seem to know what else to say.

  “I hear you’ve been going through a rough patch,” was the best he could finally manage.

  “Oh, not so bad, really,” said Matthew.

  “I’m really sorry about your dad. . . . You’ll be all right now Mother’s taken you in hand.”

  “Yes, we will.”

  Auntie Connie then took him out to meet the young ones, who were playing in the back garden. When Matthew and Annie went to the kitchen for a Coke half an hour later, they saw him playing uproarious games with them, lifting Jamie high above his head and then swooping him down towards the ground as if he were a bird seizing a worm.

  “He’s embarrassed with us because we know about his wife and our dad,” said Annie, when they were back in the front room.

  Matthew nodded wisely.

  “Yes. He’s what they used to call a cuckold.”

  “I expect he’ll get over it,” said Annie.

  But it would clearly take time. Later, toward one, when his mother asked him to stay for Sunday dinner, he began shuffling again and declined.

  “But there’s plenty for all,” Auntie Connie said. “Annie bought in a lovely, big joint.”

  “We were going to have it cold on Monday,” said Annie. “But we’d be happy if you stayed. There’s some sausages we can have tomorrow.”

  “No, I’ll not stop. There’s a lot needs doing at home before I go back on the rigs. Good-bye for now.”

  And he shot off.

  After dinner the young ones went outside again, and the other three could talk. It was necessary to decide how to organise the house and who was to sleep where.

  “It’s a mercy it’s a good, big house with four bedrooms,” said Mrs O’Keefe.

  “Aunt Lucy inherited it from her parents,” said Matthew, who remembered her best. “Dad was her nearest relative, and she and Mum were very close.”

  “It’s a blessing your dad’s settled himself in the smallest bedroom, too.”

  “He wouldn’t go into the big one, not after Mum’s death.”

  “Is that right? It would be upsetting, of course. Well, what if I have the big one, and Jamie’s little bed in there with me? Then Matthew and Gregory can have the second and Annie the third.”

  Matthew opened his mouth to protest, but she said, “A growing girl of Annie’s age needs a room to herself. I’d stay downstairs, only there really has to be a quiet room where you can do your homework. We’ll try and wean the young ones from too much television, but there’s no way we can stop them making a bit of noise.”

  Matthew and Annie thought it over and then nodded. The arrangement was the best they could come to in the circumstances. Mrs O’Keefe stood up.

  “I’ll fetch your father’s tray. I’m trying to get him used to me before the doctor comes tomorrow.”

  The doctor’s visit was something of a nightmare to Matthew. When they talked it over in 1993, he said to Annie, sitting in the big armchair he had gradually grown into as the man of the house, “I didn’t take in a thing at school that day. I was sure I was going to be blamed. I was sure he was going to say Dad was like that because we didn’t get help for him.”

  “Even if he’d thought that, he’d never have said it,” said Annie. “He’s a kind man, is Dr Maclennan. He’s always been good to us. Like coming this morning without being called in. There’s not many doctors make home calls at all these days unless they’re on call for emergencies.”

  “He has a lot of respect for Auntie Connie.”

  “Of course he does. Everybody does.”

  “You don’t think it’s true now, do you?”

  “About Dad? No, I think Dad had been going quietly mad over the last few months of Mum’s life. If anyone drove him mad it was Carmen O’Keefe.”

  “I hope you’re right. It’s . . . not something that’s easy to live with.”

  Annie was going to say something soothing, but at that moment Jamie put his head round the door and said he was going to make a pot of tea; and because they both felt they’d rather lost touch with him in the last few years, they went out to the kitchen to help him. He went about putting the kettle on and fetching cups and saucers from the cupboard with the grace of a natural but not fanatical athlete. Jamie, they all believed, was going to get somewhere in life. He was also very lovable because he cared so much for other people, and he was particularly protective of Auntie Connie. He had just taken a lot of good GCSEs and was the school sprint and hurdling champion. Annie felt that they could at least have a small part of the credit for his turning out so well.

  • • •

  That day in the summer of ‘79, Matthew came back from school with trepidation in his heart. He hoped that the doctor had been and gone, but he found Auntie Connie waiting anxiously in the kitchen, standing against the sink, unable to settle.

  “I took him up there and introduced him,” she said, “though for all the response I got, I could have saved my breath. Then I left them to it. He’ll not learn anything awkward from your poor Da’.”

  Matthew’s instinct was to make himself scarce when Dr Maclennan came down, but he forced himself to face things through.

  “Well, I’m no psychiatrist,” the doctor said, “but he looks pretty far gone to me. I can get nothing to the purpose out of him. How long has he been like this?”

  “It started sometime after Mum’s death,” said Matthew—a prepared formula he was rather proud of.

  Dr Maclennan frowned.

  “That was—when?—January, wasn’t it? My wife was at the funeral, and she said your father looked pretty cut up.”

  “Dad always hated funerals. After that he started . . . sort of sliding down. Some days he was better, some worse; and it was difficult to put your finger on anything and say, ‘Now we really have to do something.’”

  “I see. . . . Well, I’m very glad that someone has called me in now. Which doesn’t make it any easier to decide what to d
o. Of course, I’ll have to get him to a psychiatrist. Will he go willingly, do you think?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Mrs O’Keefe. “I tried to get him into the fresh air this morning—just take a walk in the garden. It can’t be healthy shut up there twenty-four hours a day. But there was no way I could get him outside. The man seemed almost frightened.”

  “I suppose that’s understandable if he’s been in there a fair while. I think I can get a psychiatrist to come here to him if I stress the seriousness and urgency of the case. But if he says he needs to be committed, then committed he’ll have to be. . . . You say you’ll be here to take care of the children, Mrs O’Keefe?”

  “Oh yes, for as long as needs be.”

  “Right, then we’ll take it from there. I suppose it would be better for them if their father was out of the house?”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” said Matthew sturdily. “We’re quite used to him being up there. He’s our father.”

  It was for Matthew a sort of reconciliation and an absolution for Dermot.

  “What do you feel?” the doctor asked Mrs O’Keefe.

  “Oh, he’s no problem as far as I’m concerned. The only question is what’s best for him.”

  “Well, I’ll pass that on to the psychiatrist. But it’s quite possible he’ll want to take him into an institution, at least for a while.”

  When he had gone, Matthew felt glad he had spoken up for his father and for his right to stay in his own home. It seemed as if it restored a balance, righted a wrong, especially as the house would undoubtedly have been more relaxed and comfortable without his presence there. When Annie got back from school, she agreed that to have had their father shunted off to an institution would have been a hateful thing to do.

  Inevitably, the fact of Dermot Heenan’s condition started to get around the Catholic community, or the St Joseph’s part of it. Matthew and Annie discovered that Auntie Connie had been right, and Greg had already let drop some hints about his state, though his teachers had been slow to pick them up. Now the fact that he was in need of psychiatric help spread fast among people who were distrustful of psychiatrists and a little scared of madness. Matthew and Annie got used to looks of sympathy.