Mother’s Only Child

by Anne Bennett

  ‘Yeah, so you say,’ Patsy sneered. ‘What would you do if I just threw it all in the air? I get fed up enough to do just that sometimes.’

  ‘Patsy, this is silly.’

  ‘Yep, that’s what I am. Silly.’

  Maddened at last, Martha burst out, ‘I’ll tell you what you are, girl, and that is damned self-centred. All this came about because of one comment Sean made to Barney and you managed to not only turn it around to discuss yourself, but complain how hard done by you are. Change the record, Patsy, for I’m sick listening to it.’

  Patsy’s face flamed with embarrassment and she stood up, pushing back her chair so violently it tipped over. She took no heed of it, just glared at them all. ‘I hate you,’ she declared. ‘I hate you all, so there.’

  When she’d left the room, slamming the door behind her and making Sally jump, Martha sighed and Tony let out a relieved, ‘Phew!’

  ‘Tony, haven’t I told you off about this before?’

  ‘Yeah, you have, but I don’t think you’re being fair,’ Tony complained. ‘You said we had to be honest and that is honestly how I feel. You feel the same or you wouldn’t have sighed.’

  ‘I’m not having any argument.’

  ‘You let Patsy argue plenty.’

  ‘That will do, Tony,’ Sean cut in. ‘Apologise to your mother, and I will apologise to Barney and Maria for that display of bad manners.’

  ‘No need,’ Barney said. ‘Isn’t that right, Maria?’

  ‘Of course,’ Maria agreed. ‘It’s fine, Uncle Sean.’

  Later, when Rosie and Martha were washing up in the kitchen, the boys around the table doing their homework and Sean had retired to the sitting room to listen to the news, Barney crept up the stairs and knocked quietly on Patsy’s door.

  ‘Go away!’

  ‘It’s me. Barney.’

  He heard the drag of her feet and then the door was opened a fraction. He saw tear trails on her face, her eyes were brimming and her hair was tousled. The effect was very provocative, the more so because Patsy would be unaware of it.

  Sean’s stepdaughter reminded him of a little girl he’d had a dalliance with in Dublin. She was about the same age, but knew what it was all about. He’d like to bet Patsy could be a little goer too, with the right teacher.

  ‘What do you want?’ Even Patsy’s voice, husky with tears, sounded incredibly sexy.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  Patsy shrugged, but opened the door wider.

  ‘I just wanted to say I know how you feel. How angry you get inside,’ Barney said as he sat uninvited on the bed and pulled Patsy down beside him.

  ‘Why do you?’

  ‘I used to feel the very same.’

  ‘I say things because I am mad…I don’t always mean them.’

  ‘I hope you didn’t mean what you said tonight,’ Barney ventured. ‘You said you hated everyone. Did that include me?’

  ‘Oh, no, not you.’ Patsy’s eyes were shining with hero worship.

  Barney allowed himself a small smile of triumph. This girl would be a pushover. He slipped his arm around her and said, ‘I would like to be your friend, Patsy, would you like that?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Barney.’

  ‘We must keep it to ourselves. The others wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘No, of course they wouldn’t.’ Patsy said.

  ‘Anyway, Sean has his own child now and he’d never feel the same for a stepdaughter as one of his own,’ Barney said, feeding Patsy’s fears.

  ‘Do you really think that?’

  ‘Stands to reason. Now they have Deirdre, they probably see you as a nuisance.’

  Every slight and injustice flashed through Patsy’s brain and she knew Barney spoke the truth. She leant against him, suddenly feeling lost and cold, and was very glad he was there. Cuddled into Barney, she remembered how special she had been to her daddy and how he had called her his princess.

  When he died, she had wanted to die too. Her mother was so upset it had been her grandparents who had helped her get through that awful time until they were all blown up with a bomb. She decided then that no-one else would ever have a piece of her heart. And they hadn’t for years, till her mother met Sean. As she got close to him she grew to hate the way he’d go on about Maria. Because he could remember her from when she was born, Patsy worried that he’d think more of Maria than her and had taken a dislike to her when she was over for the wedding.

  But she went away again and life went on as before for a while. Then Sean and her mother told her they were having a baby. She had been disgusted. Fancy old people like them doing things like that! God. She was too embarrassed even to tell her friend Chloë at first. Even before Deirdre had been born she had felt pushed out. The way they went on, you’d think that there had never been a baby born before.

  And now this wonderful handsome man had come to comfort her and say he wanted to be her friend. It was incredible and she was overwhelmed with his understanding of just how she felt.

  Barney could feel himself becoming aroused at the nearness of Patsy’s young, nubile body. He stroked her hair as he said, ‘Anyway, now you know they don’t care about you, you haven’t got to do as they say. But, this is the clever bit. You have to pretend that you do. To get more freedom, you have to convince them that you are a model daughter. What do we care what they say or do? We can laugh at them behind their backs and we have our little secret they can do nothing about.’

  It sounded terribly exciting the way Barney described it. Then he suddenly kissed her lips and got to his feet, saying, ‘I had better go before I am missed.’

  She wanted to beg him to stay, but knew he was right.

  Barney, smiling, was cautious as he went out of Patsy’s room, but there was no one around. Downstairs, he was sitting before the fire reading the paper when the women came in from the kitchen. The boys were still bent over their homework and Sean hadn’t emerged from the sitting room. So far, so good, thought Barney.

  When Maria saw the state of Barney when he came in from work that first day, she felt sorry for him. He looked completely exhausted. He also stunk of rubber. Black dust was ingrained in his skin, coating the lines on his face, encrusting his hands, caked beneath his nails and to his scalp.

  ‘Sean used to be the same,’ Martha said to Maria as she heated water for Barney’s wash. ‘Now that he is maintaining the railway that runs alongside the road through the Dunlop, he still gets dirty, but it’s like normal dirt, not like the muck from rubber. It’s why they get decent wages, I expect.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Maria said. ‘I’ve never seen Barney look so tired either.’

  ‘He’ll pick up the hang of it in no time, you’ll see,’ Martha said. ‘He won’t be so tired then.’

  Maria wondered if Barney would ever stick at the Dunlop factory long enough to pick up the hang of it. Well, if he didn’t, she thought, then he’d have to do some other line of work. She tolerated a lot of Barney’s behaviour, but no way would she stand for him returning to a life of crime. She thought the longer they kept Seamus and the others in prison, the better she would like it.

  The following Saturday morning, at Barney’s suggestion, Patsy offered to mind both babies if Maria and Martha would like to go into town that afternoon. They were delighted, although neither could be away long as they were breastfeeding.

  ‘We’ll go down the Bull Ring,’ Martha declared.

  Maria was dying to see the place she had heard so much about, although she thought Erdington marvellous, and especially the market.

  ‘What about you?’ Maria said to Barney that morning when he came into the bedroom as she was feeding Sally. ‘Will you be going to the match with Sean and the lads?’

  ‘No, not this week,’ Barney said. ‘I have to see a man in the Cross Keys pub.’

  ‘Cross Keys, where’s that?’

  ‘Just down from the abbey.’

  ‘Plays card, does he, this man?’ Maria asked.

  ‘You’re sur
ely not going to nag the life out of me over a few games of cards? You knew I always played cards.’

  ‘I worry about the money you are spending.’

  ‘When I ask for any from you, you’ll have that right,’ Barney said. ‘Till then, what I do with my own money and in my own time is my business alone.’

  Maria sighed. ‘All right then, what have you done with the money for the boatyard? Surely that is half mine.’

  The money was in the tin where Barney kept all the money from the raids in Dublin, but he had no intention of telling Maria that. ‘All your property became mine on your father’s death,’ Barney said, ‘unless he specifically willed anything to you—and he didn’t do that. So for Christ’s sake, will you stop bloody nagging me? You never let a man alone.’

  Maria knew that once Barney shouted at her like that any reasonable discussion would be useless, so when he left the room, though she sighed in vexation, she didn’t bother calling him back.

  Barney went out for a few pints about mid-morning and hadn’t returned by the time Sean came home from work. The lunch-time meal was eaten quickly so that Sean and the boys could head off to the match. Shortly after they had left, the two women fed and changed the babies. ‘Are you sure about this?’ Martha said to Patsy as she lay the drowsy Deirdre down in the pram.

  ‘Course I am.’

  ‘It’s just if they wake up together,’ Martha said. ‘Maria is leaving Sally in the bedroom, but they could still disturb one another.’

  ‘If they do, they do,’ said Patsy. ‘I’m a big girl and I will cope. Don’t worry so much.’

  Really, thought Martha, Patsy was like a changed girl. She said as much to Maria as they travelled into the town on the bus.

  ‘It certainly was kind of her,’ Maria agreed. ‘I just hope the two of them won’t give her a hard time.’

  ‘Me too,’ Martha said with a laugh. ‘Then she might do it again a time or two. Maybe whatever ailed her has gone now.’

  Maria could have told her that she knew what had influenced Patsy’s behaviour and that was Barney. He had told her that himself when she had tackled him about flirting with her. ‘God in heaven, woman, I can’t do right for you whatever I do!’ he’d exclaimed. ‘All right, I gave the girl a wink, made her smile, took the sulky look off her face. Tell you the truth, that look reminded me of myself about the same age—all at sixes and sevens, and thinking everyone hates you and is getting at you. I wanted to get on her side, tell her I sort of understood.’

  ‘Did she listen?’

  ‘Aye, aye, she did,’ Barney said. ‘I told her if she wanted Sean and Martha to treat her in a more grownup way, then she had to stop acting like a child, and a spoilt child at that. And you have got to admit it’s working.’

  ‘Aye, so far, anyway,’ Maria had to concede. ‘And I’m sorry, Barney, if I have made a big deal out of it.’

  She didn’t tell Martha about Barney’s involvement, for she felt it not fair to do so. She was glad that she didn’t really have anything to worry about. Married to a man like Barney, she was finding life was often a whole catalogue of worry.

  If she had been able to glimpse into the house a little later, worry would have been on high alert. Barney, as arranged, had come home from the pub early and Patsy was waiting for him.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ she asked.

  ‘No, bring a couple of glasses,’ Barney said. ‘I have brought a few bottles home with me.’

  ‘I’ve never had beer.’

  ‘Well, now is your chance to try it. Fetch the glasses, then come and sit here beside me on the settee.’

  Patsy didn’t like the beer, but she covered her distaste and said it was fine because she thought that would please him. She hadn’t liked the odd puffs of the cigarettes he had given her a few days before either, but she thought she would probably get used to them and it did make her feel very grown up to light one. So when Barney proffered his packet, she took one without hesitation.

  ‘What would Sean and your mother do it if they could see you now?’ Barney asked. ‘Knocking back beer with the best of them and smoking.’

  ‘They’d have a fit.’

  ‘Right,’ Barney agreed. ‘And for what? We’re not hurting anyone, are we?’

  ‘No, we’re not,’ Patsy declared. ‘They’d like to keep me a child for ever.’

  ‘Ah, well, that’s where I differ,’ Barney said. ‘See, I wasn’t brought up like you. In fact, I was dragged up. My parents were either too sick, or sometimes too drunk to care what I was doing. I was often hungry and was dressed in rags and ran about barefoot, winter and summer.

  ‘They died when I was ten. I didn’t really miss them as my brother took me over. He was strict. I mean, I had to do what he said when he said it or he would take his belt off to me. Funnily enough, I didn’t mind that because at least he showed he cared. He always said it was daft to have ages when you can do this and that and he let me try everything—booze, fags, even sex.’

  ‘Sex!’

  ‘Aye, when he judged the time was right, and I was more than ready.’

  ‘I thought…‘ Patsy said hesitantly, ‘I mean we’re taught, aren’t we, that sex outside marriage is wrong?’

  ‘That’s what we’re taught, right enough,’ Barney said. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean, I’ve never thought about it.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for a minute,’ Barney said. ‘At your age it was all I thought about, and I bet girls are no different to boys. I can see you blushing. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  Patsy nodded and Barney laughed. ‘Have you ever been out with a boy, Patsy?’

  Patsy shook her head vehemently.

  ‘Let me guess. Sean and your mother wouldn’t like it?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Patsy said. ‘They haven’t said. I mean, it’s just not come up. I don’t get much chance to see boys at the convent, you know. Mom did say I can start going to the youth club at the school hall at the abbey when I am fifteen in February. My friend Chloë will be fifteen two weeks before me and I think the parents have worked it out between themselves. I’ll probably see boys there.’ But it was said tentatively.

  ‘Course you will. What’s up?’

  ‘It’s just…I don’t know, really,’ Patsy went on. ‘I mean, I know girls who go and they say the boys play table tennis all night at one side of the hall and the girl all dance together. There’s none of that jitterbugging allowed either, and they’d be scandalised by this,’ she said, waving her glass aloft. ‘Nothing stronger than orange juice is drunk. Father Clancy is there to keep an eye on everyone.’

  ‘See you don’t leap on each other in a fit of rampant lust?’

  Patsy laughed. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound the most exciting place in the universe,’ Barney said.

  Patsy sighed. ‘No. It’s just better than staying in night after night—not much better, mind.’

  ‘Come on, Patsy, now that I am your friend, I bet I can think up better places to go now and again, even if we have to hoodwink the parents to do it.’

  Patsy felt warmed and comforted by Barney’s words. When he put his arm around her, she nestled against him. ‘I am so glad I have got you for a friend.’

  ‘Likewise,’ Barney said, placing a chaste kiss on the top of Patsy’s head. ‘Now sit up, drain that glass, and I’ll get us a refill and teach you how to play poker. What d’you say?’

  ‘I say yes, yes, yes,’ Patsy cried, aware, even as she spoke, that she would say yes to most things Barney might suggest.

  Maria was following behind Martha as she led the way from the High Street down the hill to the Bull Ring. She’d been impressed enough with the shops, though horrified by the gaping holes and mounds of rubble that she saw in the streets everywhere. She would have liked to have lingered, but Martha would have none of it. ‘We can come again to see the city centre, what’s left of it,’ she said. ‘But we haven’t got long, and today I
want you to experience the Bull Ring.’

  It was soon apparent that the Bull Ring had not come through the war unscathed either. On the left-hand side of the incline leading down into it Martha indicated the sea of rubble. ‘These used to be shops once, bespoke tailors that would make up a suit for thirty bob, and another shop selling sweets and newspapers, side by side with a shoe shop and next to that a cafe and right at the end was a pet shop. There were always kittens in the window, and a large parrot sat outside on a perch in good weather. I used to be quite nervous of him, despite the fact he was tethered so that he couldn’t fly away.’

  Maria shook her head at the destruction. She looked down into the sea of people where the cries of the vendors vied with the noise from the thronging masses as they went down the hill and into the mêlée.

  Either side of a large statue on a podium and surrounded by iron railings, barrows lined the cobbled streets, many with canvas awnings above them. Fruit and veg, rabbit and fish were for sale side by side with junk, and stalls selling baskets of odd crockery and battered pans. The amalgamated smells lingered in the air.

  ‘At least there’s more fruit now,’ Martha said, ‘more variety and more vegetables.’

  ‘Whale meat for sale’ said a board above one stall.

  ‘Whale meat—ugh!’ Maria exclaimed.

  ‘I still do that as a change now and again,’ Martha said. ‘I thought it quite expensive at two and six a pound, but the beauty of it was it was off ration. Believe me, when you are trying to fill up hungry children you’ll try anything. Rabbit is lovely, and I’ve even bought horse meat. I didn’t tell the children what it was, though. It tastes very like beef, except that it needs more cooking to make it tender. Whale meat has quite a strong flavour. I always find it better mixed with mashed potato and made into fish pie. It’s something else to eat on Fridays, anyway.’

  Suddenly, Maria was aware of one strident voice rising above the others and she strained her ears to catch the words.

  ‘Carriers. Handy carriers.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘The old lady in front of Woolworths,’ Martha said. ‘Been here since the year dot and in all weathers. Everyone knows her. And this here is Lord Nelson,’ she went on, indicating the statue in front of them. ‘Before the war, flowersellers used to congregate all around here. But so much of the country was carved up to plant foodstuffs, flowers are not that plentiful any more. I reckon a lot of folk will be reclaiming the land back now, so the flowersellers might well be back by the spring. Come on, Peacocks is over here.’