Mother’s Only Child

by Anne Bennett

  ‘Nothing helps,’ Tony said. ‘She’s a mental case, a complete fruitcake.’

  ‘Tony!’

  ‘It’s all those brains, gone to mush in her head,’ Tony went on, unabashed. ‘Don’t do you no good anyroad, I don’t think, brains.’

  ‘Tony, I shan’t speak to you again. Haven’t you any homework?’

  ‘Just reading.’

  ‘Well, go and do it, for heaven’s sake, and give us some peace. What about you, Paul?’

  Paul pulled a face. ‘I’ve got to find out all about St Paul. Miss has given me a book about him.’

  ‘Off you go then,’ Martha said. ‘That will keep you busy. St Paul was quite a character.’

  Paul slid from the chair and went upstairs.

  The baby, who’d been lying asleep in the pram, had been disturbed by Patsy’s slam of the door. She began to cry.

  ‘Oh God,’ Martha said, exasperated, getting to her feet, ‘I honestly don’t know what’s the matter with our Patsy. She’s been difficult for weeks, but that performance tonight beats the lot and now Deirdre is awake and might take ages to settle.’

  ‘What has she against Maria anyway?’ Sean asked, puzzled, as Martha hauled the baby from the pram and held her against her shoulder. ‘She hardly knows her.’

  ‘It’s not just Maria, it could be anyone,’ Martha said. ‘I told you before the wedding, it’s anyone that takes your attention away from her. She’s jealous and she’s been worse than ever since I’ve had Deirdre.’

  ‘Well, going on like this is not going to make me love her more,’ Sean said. ‘In fact, the opposite is the more likely. And as for spending time with her, I think I’d rather share the room with a sabre-toothed tiger.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘The blokes at work say all teenage girls are like this today.’

  ‘God, if I’d have said half the things she gets away with to my mother, I’d not be here today,’ Martha said. ‘She’d have killed me stone dead.’

  ‘Maybe that’s where we went wrong,’ Sean mused. ‘Too keen to make allowances. But I can’t write and tell Maria now that she’s not welcome.’

  ‘No,’ Martha said. ‘No, you can’t, and it wouldn’t be true anyway. I’m looking forward to her coming and the boys really like her. It will be a long time, Sean, before I refuse to help someone because of some whim of a selfish child.’

  ‘What about Patsy?’

  ‘What about her?’ Martha said. ‘She’ll have to like it or lump it. Don’t worry so much, Sean. Maria is a big girl now and well able, I’d say, to cope with a teenage girl and her fancies.’

  ‘Aye,’ Sean said, leaning across to give his wife a kiss on the cheek. ‘You’re right as usual, and I think Deirdre has dropped off again. You can put her back in the pram now.’

  Although Maria was glad to be going with her uncle—which she now knew Dora and Bella had arranged—she was very sad to be leaving the village.

  ‘It’s no wonder,’ Dora said consolingly. ‘You’re leaving behind all you’ve ever known, and for a life so totally different that it is bound to feel strange at first.’

  ‘Aye,’ Bella agreed, ‘and I’d say you are almost bound to feel homesick. But you won’t be the only one to leave these shores for a better life.’

  ‘I know,’ Maria said. ‘But oh, how I will miss the pair of you.’

  Bella held Maria tight. She didn’t have to speak, though she couldn’t have spoken anyway, for she was choked with emotion.

  Con was driving Sean and Maria to Derry in a car borrowed from a neighbour. They were to catch the night train from there. Maria was surprised and moved to see how many had braved the icy wind and raw night air to gather in The Square and wish them Godspeed.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come out, Dora,’ Maria admonished the older lady, tucking the scarf inside her neck more snugly.

  ‘Maria, you leaving…well, it’s like losing one of our own,’ Bella said. ‘We had to come and see you off.’

  ‘Ah, don’t, Bella,’ Maria said, as the tears slid down her cheeks.

  Con said gently, ‘It’s better if we get going, Maria, before these good people stick to the ground altogether.’ Maria saw the sense of what Con said and she climbed into the car beside Sean. Without another word they were on their way.

  Maria found it was far nicer travelling with someone than alone, especially a lovely man like her uncle. It seemed no time at all before they reached Dun Laoghaire.

  It was still dark when they boarded the boat so they couldn’t see that the sea was like a raging torrent, but they felt the boat listing from side to side even before it had left the harbour. Maria felt her stomach tighten as she remembered how sick she had been last time. This journey was little different. The boat was pitched and tossed in the turbulent water, and she was glad she had her uncle there to mind the baby.

  Later, when her stomach was emptied at last, Sean insisted Maria try to rest. Wearied by sickness and sheer tiredness, she didn’t argue, but lay across the bench with her head on her uncle’s lap, and slept until the boat docked at Holyhead.

  It wasn’t until they were in the train that Maria allowed herself to think of Patsy and her previous animosity towards her, but she dismissed her apprehensions. Patsy had been a little younger then and perhaps not so sure of Sean as she was now. It would be almost two years since they had met and she was sure—well, almost sure—that this time things would run much smoother.

  This time, the whole family were out to welcome them, even Martha, standing on the steps and holding the baby. She came down to kiss Maria, and they compared and enthused over each other’s babies, while the boys cavorted around Maria, catching up the bags and cases excitedly.

  Once more Patsy stood apart and Maria saw she had emerged from the gawky child to a very well-developed and beautiful girl on the verge of womanhood. She was tall and slender, with a lovely figure. Her hair, as dark as Maria’s, was wavy and fell just past her shoulders, held back from her face with decorated combs. Her eyes, though, were her best feature, so large and dark, and ringed with long black lashes. Maria felt sorry that they were at that moment filled with resentment. Her rosebud mouth, pulled into such a sulky pout, caused lines to form at the side of it and at each side of her nose, which was pinched in with open disapproval. Maria knew that, just like nearly two years previously, the girl begrudged her presence there.

  She was at that moment too tired to care. Seldom could Maria remember being so tired—almost too tired to eat the meal Martha put in front of her. Later, as she fed the baby, Sean said, ‘When you’ve done, why don’t you go on up, Maria? The bed’s all ready for you.’ ‘Oh, but the dishes—’

  ‘I wouldn’t let you help with the dishes anyway,’ Martha said firmly. ‘And Sean’s right, you look proper washed out. I’ve made up a drawer for Sally to sleep in for now, but we will get something more suitable in a day or two.’

  ‘A drawer is fine, honestly.’

  ‘Well, she can’t stay in it indefinitely,’ Martha said. ‘But don’t worry, there is a notice board at the clinic and there’s always baby equipment advertised.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure Sally will be more than happy in a drawer tonight,’ Maria said. ‘And I am so tired I could sleep on a washing line.’

  ‘Will Sally sleep all night?’ Martha asked.

  ‘I don’t know. She’s just begun to do that, but I’ve probably upset her whole system. Does Deirdre?’

  ‘Like Sally, she’s just started to,’ Martha said. ‘Not like the boys. Tony was waking at night until he was nine months old, and even Paul was well over six months. Greedy, see.’

  ‘Yeah, and nothing’s changed,’ Patsy said disparagingly.

  ‘Don’t start,’ Martha warned Patsy. ‘If you have enough energy to fight, young lady, you have enough to give me a hand, so start collecting the plates up.’

  Sean had gone to work and the children to school when Maria came down to the kitchen the next morning.

  As she f
ed and changed the baby Martha said, ‘You need to get an identity card and a ration book, and a special baby’s one for Sally. It wouldn’t hurt either to put your name down at Bush House, for a council house, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Maria. ‘But ration books. I thought—’

  ‘You thought, with the war over, rationing would be out the window now?’

  ‘Aye. Something like that.’

  ‘Lots of people thought the same way,’ Martha said. ‘But what has changed since the war really?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I know there is no longer any blackout, no bombs, but the men are only being demobbed slowly, so they might avoid the problems they had last time when the “Land fit for heroes” had only poverty to offer their serving soldiers and their families,’ Martha said. ‘We still have an army of occupation in Germany—that might go on for years.

  ‘Then, lots of factories making other things, even food stuffs, were turned over to manufacturing munitions—like Cadbury’s, where they were putting cordite in rockets rather than soft centres into chocolate. And they slaughtered hundreds of hens at the beginning of the war to save on food stuffs, so rationing might go on for years yet. If you don’t get a ration card pronto you won’t be able to get any food. As today is Friday, we’re daren’t leave it because they won’t be open again until Monday.’

  ‘So where do we have to go?’

  ‘The Council House in the town. We’ll have to take the two babies with us.’ Deirdre, upstairs in her cot, chose that moment to begin to cry, and Martha said, ‘Will you listen to that? She’s woken just in time for our little outing.’

  Barney contacted Ned the day after Sean and Maria left. He wanted to speak to the man anyway—not just about the boatyard, but also to see if Ned had any news of his brother.

  ‘They come up for trial two weeks before Christmas,’ Ned told Barney, a couple of days later. ‘I’ve been to see your brother and he said to tell you to keep away. No one has mentioned your name in connection with any of this—that was your brother’s doing—but the Garda aren’t daft altogether. They know you’re involved somehow. Apparently, Seamus heard the screws talking and they were certain you’d turn up for the trial and were intending to arrest you then.’

  Barney felt as if an icy finger was trailing down his spine. ‘Arrest me? What for?’

  ‘Do they have to have a reason?’ Ned asked. ‘It could just be because they don’t like the look of you. Anyway, according to Seamus, if once they get you in there, with the endless questions they fire at you for hours, one taking over from another, you’re ready to swear that black’s white and will admit to anything just to get them to stop.’

  ‘So, what am I to do?’

  ‘Stay here.’ Ned advised. ‘Or better still, hightail it to Maria’s uncle’s place as soon as you can, and certainly well before the trial. It’s unlikely they would follow you there. As for the boatyard, you know I want it and the price we agreed on. As it is a cash sale, we don’t need solicitors and all to make money out of it.’

  ‘So Seamus doesn’t want me at the trial?’

  ‘What he wants is to keep you out of prison,’ Ned said. ‘I’ll go along, if you like, and tell you the outcome, though it will likely make the papers, which is one more reason to be well away from here by the time the news breaks. I know from experience that mud sticks, and in a little place like this…well, I don’t have to spell it out for you, I’m sure.’

  No, he didn’t. Barney could imagine it all. He shook hands with Ned.

  ‘I don’t know why you are doing this,’ he said, ‘but I’m grateful.’

  ‘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.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  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.

&nbs
p; 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.’