by Anne Bennett
Maria couldn’t take the risk that there would be any money left then. It might melt away, like the money from the boatyard. Once they were on their own she knew she would have little say in anything. Here, with Sean and Martha taking an interest in everything, she knew Barney wouldn’t risk drawing huge sums out of the bank.
By the time they were ready to move in, all the floors had lino on, though in the living room a carpet square almost covered it, leaving just the edges showing because Martha said it was the latest thing. An uncut moquette three-piece suite in medium brown was drawn up before the fireplace and a large table, with four dining chairs tucked under it, stood in the bay window.
She and Martha took frequent trips to the market for the pots, pans, crockery and cutlery, all utility, which was all there was available, and later to buy the material for the curtains and cushions, which Maria ran up on the sewing machine. It gave Maria a thrill of pride to see how fine the house looked. Martha too thought she had the place lovely and told her so.
It was Saturday and moving day. Barney had gone down to the house to await the arrival of the gas man, who would fit the new gas cooker and boiler, and Maria stripped the covers from their double bed, Sally’s bed and the cot so that Sean could dismantle them. She was going down the stairs with the bedding in her arms to put in the scullery when the cot sheet slipped through her fingers. She made a grab for it but the sheet tangled around her legs, causing her to lose her balance. She tipped forward, screaming as she hurtled through the air, the clothes tumbling from her hands as she tried in vain to grab anything to break her fall.
She bumped and thudded from one step to the next until she landed with a thump at the bottom.
‘Almighty God!’ Sean cried as he thundered down the stairs at the same time as Martha came running up the passage.
‘Are you all right?’ Martha said, berating herself for saying something so stupid. Would anyone be all right after such a fall?
‘Where are you hurt?’ Sean said. ‘Can you stand?’
Maria didn’t answer but just lay stunned, aware she was aching everywhere.
‘I think we should get you to bed and let the doctor take a look at you,’ Martha said.
Maria opened her mouth to say she needed no doctor, but all that came out was a groan. As she struggled to her feet, helped by Sean and Martha, a dull pain began throbbing in her back. By the time Barney and the doctor had been summoned, she was ensconced in Martha and Sean’s bed. The pain in her back was joined by drawing pains across her abdomen. She wondered if history was repeating itself, for she knew that she was in labour and two months too early.
The doctor said there was no time to go to hospital and he would be back later. Martha sat with Maria all day, holding her hand and wiping her face, while Patsy took on the running of the house and looked after the children. Martha told Sean to take the boys to the match as usual—they could do nothing hanging about the house—but Sean was hesitant to leave and even the boys were reluctant at first.
Patsy agreed with her mother. ‘What good will you do by staying?’ she demanded.
‘Nothing, I suppose,’ Tony said. ‘But she will be all right, won’t she?’
‘Course,’ Patsy said, knowing Tony needed that assurance. ‘Go on, it will probably all be over when you come back.’
Six agonising hours later, with the doctor in attendance, Maria expelled the baby from her body.
‘Tell Barney he has his son,’ she told Martha bitterly.
And he had. The child was small, perfectly formed and quite, quite dead.
Maria was so distraught by the death of the child the doctor gave her something to help her sleep. When she wakened from her drug-induced sleep on Sunday morning, she was, for a little while, disorientated. She was still in Sean and Martha’s bed, so she presumed they had used hers and maybe Barney had spent the night on the settee, not wishing to disturb her.
The house was quiet and she got out of bed gingerly, but she was afraid to take a step because her head swam. The room spun around her in an alarming way and she lay back on the pillows. The alarm said it was a quarter to ten and she guessed they’d all gone to Mass. Barney didn’t usually go so early, but if he had spent the night on the settee then there would be little chance of a lie-in.
Maybe, just maybe, he had gone willingly to church to pray for the soul of his infant son, who, according to the church’s teaching, would never be given a place in heaven, because he hadn’t been baptised. Instead he would be in Limbo forever. That knowledge caused Maria further heartache and she would have welcomed Barney coming to comfort her and talk about the child they had both lost.
However, it was Tony who came into the room first, with her breakfast after they had all returned from Mass. When Martha did come to see Maria, she was accompanied by the three little girls and she couldn’t speak in front of them. Deirdre and Sally, picking up the atmosphere, had been very worried about Maria, while thirteen-month-old Theresa had just been fretful. All of them were glad to see Maria sitting up in the bed and looking normal.
Sean warned that no one was to say anything to Maria about Barney slamming out of the door the previous evening and not coming home; she had more than enough to put up with. So when Patsy took her a cup of tea after dinner and Maria asked where Barney was, Patsy said, ‘Where is Barney usually this time on a Sunday?’
Maria felt a stab of disappointment. He’d gone to the pub, as if it was a normal day, as if she’d not given birth to a stillborn baby, and he’d gone too without even poking his head around the bedroom door and asking if she was all right.
But there was no sign of Barney that evening either. By the next day Martha said Maria should be told, for something could have happened to the man, so when she asked again where her husband was that evening, Martha said, ‘No one has any idea where Barney is, Maria.’
‘Does he know I gave birth to a son and the baby died?’ Maria asked.
‘Yes, he knows that.’
‘Did he see the child before they took it away.’
Martha nodded dumbly. ‘That’s when he left,’ she said at last. ‘Sean has contacted the police.’
‘They won’t be interested,’ Maria said. ‘They take the view that if a man wants to disappear, then he can. Unless he has done anything wrong they won’t be in any rush to find him.’
She remembered when she had given birth to Sally and Barney had done a disappearing act, but then he had a network of villains to help him, including his brother. This time there was none of that, and yet she wasn’t concerned. ‘Don’t worry,’ she told Martha. ‘He won’t have disappeared for good. He’ll turn up.’
She was sickened by the whole thing. She had carried the child for seven months and was looking forward to the birth, hoping for Barney’s sake it was a boy, but knowing she would love it whatever the sex. When the child was born dead an ache settled around her heart and she wept for the baby who’d had life wrenched from him before he had time to draw breath.
Maria was right: Barney turned up the following evening. His clothes were dishevelled and stained and he stunk to high heaven. He was so drunk he could barely stand. Sean was at a lost what area to tackle first, especially as he had no wish for the children to see more that they had to, and he was heartily glad the little girls had already gone to bed.
Much later, in bed, with Barney bedded down on the settee in the living room, Martha asked Sean, ‘Did he give you any explanation of where he has been the past few days?’
‘I didn’t ask him for one,’ Sean said. ‘Do you think for one minute that he was capable of putting together a sensible sentence?’
‘No,’ Martha said, and gave a sigh. ‘Poor Maria.’
‘Aye,’ said Sean with feeling. ‘I echo that.’
Maria didn’t even ask Barney to explain his absence. She knew why he had taken off and knew too if the fall had injured her inside, as it had her mother, so that she’d never bear another child, Barney would be unlikely to take tha
t in a calm and rational manner. In a way, she didn’t want to face that, but mourn for the baby her arms still ached to hold. In the end, though, she had to know. She plucked up courage to ask the doctor if she had damaged herself permanently.
‘Why should you think that?’ Dr Linden wanted to know.
‘My mother did just what I did when she was expecting my brother,’ Maria said, ‘and she could never have another child after it.’
The doctor smiled. ‘Don’t worry, my dear,’ he said. ‘There have been great strides forward in medicine since then. Rest assured that there is no permanent damage, as far as I can tell, though I will know more at your post-natal check-up. If there is anything wrong then, I’m certain it will be able to be put right. I should say there is no reason, medically speaking, anyway, why you shouldn’t go on to have a whole house full of children.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Maria and Barney moved into their new house ten days later. Martha and Sean thought it much too soon. Maria was still weak and burdened by sadness, but Barney insisted. He was so angry about everything and nothing that Maria just went along with things for the sake of a quiet life—and not for herself alone; for sometimes the look Barney cast over his daughters was one of sheer dislike.
It didn’t help that the girls were difficult. Sally had been excited about the house, but she hadn’t followed through the realisation that once they moved into it, she would be separated from Deirdre. She protested long and hard, and was often whiny and hard to please. Theresa took the lead from her elder sister, cried often and was very uncooperative and began waking in the night and demanding attention. Maria was worn out with the pair of them.
She also found pleasing Barney hard work, and harder still the fact that he never spoke of the dead child. It was just as if it had never happened; that the wee child had never been. Nor did he say one word as to where he had been when he disappeared for three days.
‘Haven’t you asked him?’ Martha said incredulously, calling down for a visit a few days after the move. ‘God, I’d have had it in fine detail from Sean if ever he’d done such a thing. You have a right to demand an explanation of where he was that time and you should tell him so.’
Maria tried to imagine what would happen if she did and she shut her eyes for moment against the picture. ‘I couldn’t do that,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘God, Martha, Barney would never stand it.’
Martha saw the fear-filled eyes and suddenly had to know. ‘Maria, does Barney still hit you?’
Maria just stared at Martha, before saying in a flat, expressionless voice, ‘I’m going to forget you even asked that question.’
‘Maria…‘
‘No, Martha. We’ve spoken about this before,’ Maria said. ‘Barney isn’t easy and I have never pretended he was. I try not to rock the boat and I put up with things other wives might not put up with. But, as my mother used to say, I’ve made my bed and now I must lie on it.’
Eventually life settled down. The little ones got used to the change and the only thing Maria had to worry about was making the money stretch. Almost as soon as they moved into the house, Barney cut the amount he gave Maria for housekeeping. She did complain over this, for it was a little over half what she’d had to manage on before, but it got her nowhere. Barney said it was he who sweated blood for it and he’d decide how to spend it, and if she couldn’t manage it would be her look out.
Maria did get depressed over this at times. She was grateful for the five shillings Family Allowance that she was able to cash at the post office, but even with that added to the housekeeping, some weeks she couldn’t even afford the rations she was allowed. She was heartily glad that bread was off ration because she could use it to fill Sally up, and herself too, glad that as yet Theresa didn’t eat much. She always made sure that she had something to put before Barney when he came in each evening though; she could just imagine his temper if she hadn’t.
After his tea, he would go out and Maria would breathe a sigh of relief when the door closed behind him. She knew there would be a respite until he returned, when he would usually stagger around the bedroom until he fell into bed beside her. Then she would often feel his groping hands pawing her body. He usually stank of sweat, stale beer and cigarettes, but she didn’t say a word about it and would also suppress any sigh of annoyance. If she let him do what he wanted, they rubbed along peaceably enough most of the time.
Patsy passed her Higher School Certificate that summer, and was to start at Leicester Teacher Training College in September. Maria remembered when a golden future was held out to her and she hoped that nothing would happen to dim the shining light in Patsy’s eyes. She kissed her and congratulated her warmly.
Once she was resident there, Maria wrote to her every week, along with the regular letters she wrote to Bella and Dora and the occasional one she wrote to Philomena, now steeped in domesticity, bringing up her sister’s family.
She hardly seemed the same person who had coached Maria with such diligence, encouraging her to focus only on her future. But then was she the same person as the vibrant young girl who thought her future rosy and her life her own? It was circumstances that shaped people’s lives, and a person often had no control over those.
Bella and Dora seemed much the same. When Maria got their replies, it was like them being in the room with her and that sometimes made her a wee bit homesick. They would tell her all the news and gossip from the village, especially of the boatyard, a great place of interest and speculation altogether. They said Ned was making a fine turnaround of the place and Maria felt pleased about that, for she had liked Ned.
Barney wrote to his brother regularly, but his visits to see Seamus had had to be curtailed somewhat, for now he had less money in his pocket. They paid more on rent than they had when they were lodging with Sean. There, the bills had been shared between them too. Added to that, Barney had lost the rental that used to be sent to him each month, so even after cutting Maria’s housekeeping, he was still worse off. The money in the tin was all gone now and he knew soon he would have to draw some from the bank.
Maria wasn’t aware of Barney’s concerns. She had her own and the most pressing one was Christmas. By scrimping and scraping, virtually living on bread with a smear of margarine or dripping for weeks, and scouring the Rag Market while Martha minded the girls, she’d been able to buy some little things for them to open on Christmas morning. A colouring book and crayons for Sally, chalks and a slate board for Theresa, plus a book for Maria to read to them, a small bar of chocolate she had saved the sweet rations for and a orange each she had queued for hours to get, ensured the day would go with a swing for them at least.
After Mass, they were to spend the day with Sean and Martha. Barney hadn’t wanted to, but for once Maria had dug her heels in and said they would think it strange if they didn’t. There was no way she was sitting in with Barney all day—and it would be all day, for the pubs were closed until the evening and she could guess the mood he would be in because of it.
All in all, it had been a grand day, although Barney, looking decidedly the worse for wear, didn’t make an appearance at the house until the dinner was being dished up. The children were as excited as any would be and Patsy, home for the holiday, regaled them with her life at the hostel and the tyrannical housekeeper in charge of the place.
‘She’s lost her calling,’ Patsy said. ‘She should have been a sergeant major in the army.’
Martha said nothing and tried to hide the smile. Despite Patsy’s moans, her sympathies were with the woman trying to keep a watchful eye on a hostel full of young girls. It was little wonder her hair was as grey as Patsy said it was.
It had been an alien thing for her to understand that Patsy would move out of the house and live elsewhere. In Martha’s world, a girl stayed at home until she was married and then she was in her husband’s keeping. She knew what girls together could get up to, and was glad the housekeeper let them away w
ith so little if it meant she could rest easy in her bed at night.
In June 1950 another war began in a place called Korea and many of the British boys doing their national service were drafted in to fight. ‘Where is bloody Korea anyway?’ Martha said irritably one day when she was visiting Maria. ‘I mean, what’s it to us? Why put our boys at risk again?’
Maria knew what Martha was afraid of. Tony had turned fourteen in April and she didn’t want him shipped overseas when he was eighteen to fight in some obscure country she’d never even heard of before. Maria understood her concern. In her opinion, Martha had lost more than enough family members. It was no good her saying the skirmish would be finished well before Tony would be old enough for national service because, as Martha said, the last war went on for six years.
Maria was pregnant again, the baby due in November and by then she would only have Theresa at home all day because Sally and Deirdre would be starting up at the abbey school in September. Both girls were fizzing with excitement about it.
‘You can almost pity the teachers,’ Maria said. ‘For if there is any devilment about, you can bet ours will be in the thick of it.’
‘What do you mean, in the thick of it?’ Martha said, with a wry smile. ‘They will more likely be the instigators of it.’
‘Aye,’ Maria said and laughed. The girls were full of mischief, especially when they got together. What one didn’t think of, the other would, and Theresa would trail after them, copying anything they did. But they were growing up fast and Maria was looking forward to another baby, although she couldn’t help feeling a little apprehensive.
The two girls left their mothers without a tear that first day at school, and it was Theresa who cried all the way home because she had wanted to go with her sister. Once in the house, Maria lifted her from the pushchair and on to her knee.
‘How could I lose the pair of you?’ she asked the tearful child as she hugged her tight. ‘Won’t I need someone at home to help me with the new baby?’