Mother’s Only Child

by Anne Bennett

  There was no one in the bedroom either, but neither was there the sewing machine that had stood on the table by the bay window. Maria sank down on the bed. The bloody bastard had taken her sewing machine. By Christ, she’d not let him get away with it, not this time. That sewing machine made the difference to whether her children had enough to eat or not. She’d find out where the bloody selfish bugger had taken it and buy it back if she had to, she decided.

  Barney had had a bad day. Solly at the pawnshop had given him bloody peanuts for the sodding sewing machine and he’d near bust a gut carrying it up the village. It was a ton weight and what he’d got for it went nowhere near paying off the debt at the bookie’s. Even MacKay had got shirty, and he’d laugh if he tried to give him so little. The only thing to do, as far as Barney could see, was put it on another horse and try to increase it that way. There were races all afternoon. In that way he lost every penny piece he had.

  He went to see MacKay that evening before the man sought him out. ‘Take what I owe out of my wages,’ he pleaded.

  ‘You ain’t got no wages,’ MacKay told him. ‘Not this week, anyroad. You’ve taken it already in advances and so far it would take nearly three weeks’ wages to clear that debt.’

  ‘I know…‘

  ‘You know nowt, mate,’ MacKay said. ‘Face it, you’re just a loser. A piss artist. Get out of my sight!’

  ‘You mean—’

  ‘I mean you are sacked, fired, finished. I don’t want to see you ever again.’

  Barney stumbled from the man’s office. He hadn’t even the money for the bus fare and he set off to walk home. When he reached the Norton, he went inside.

  ‘Give us a pint George and put it on the slate.’

  George shook his head. ‘Sorry, you already owe too much.’

  ‘Just a bloody pint.’

  ‘I’m running a business here, not a bleeding charity,’ George said. ‘Pay up or sling your hook.’

  With no option but to leave, Barney stood outside the pub, undecided what to do. Jesus, how he needed a drink. The only way he could see of getting any money was from Maria. Oh, he knew she would moan, complain, cry and say she had none, but if she knew what was good for her she would make no fuss about it.

  Maria had just put the children to bed and washed up the dinner dishes when Barney came to the door. She was surprised to see him so early and comparatively sober, but she was ready for him.

  Barely was he properly through the door, and before her courage could fail her, she said, ‘What have you done with the sewing machine?’

  ‘What you on about?’

  ‘You know,’ Maria spat out. ‘You’ve taken that sewing machine. It had to be you.’

  ‘Yeah, I needed the money. So what?’

  ‘It belonged to me.’

  ‘No, it bloody didn’t. I paid for it,’ Barney said. ‘Anyway, it’s no bleeding use and I needed the cash. And now I need more, so what you got in that purse?’

  ‘What I have is already accounted for and you won’t get a penny piece from me.’

  ‘We’ll see about that, you cocky bitch,’ Barney said, making a grab for her.

  Suddenly, something snapped in Maria. She saw in her mind’s eye how it had been just a few months before, the half starving and shivering children crying with discomfort and pain she could do nothing to ease. Never ever, while there was breath in her body, would she go back to that situation.

  Although her bulk made her clumsy, she flew at Barney, raking his face with her nails as she cried, ‘Tell me what you’ve done with it, you bastard.’

  Barney, taken unawares, staggered under the assault. Then he recovered himself. All the frustrations of the day were in the punches he powered into Maria’s face. She tried to protect herself, but she groaned and cried out in panic as she felt her mouth fill up with blood. A final punch knocked her to the floor and she instinctively curled in a ball and put her arms around her stomach protectively as Barney kicked at her viciously till even the moans and sighs had stopped and she lay still.

  Patsy, coming down with Andrew to tell Maria they thought they had found a house they could afford, found her.

  ‘Who in God’s name…?’ began Andrew, shocked beyond measure, but Patsy had flown to her cousin’s unconscious frame and, leaning over her gently, put the fingers against her neck and sighed with relief when she felt the pulse.

  ‘Get an ambulance,’ she told Andrew. ‘There is a phone box on Wood Acre Road. I think that will be the nearest.’

  ‘God this is awful,’ Andrew said. ‘I’ll get an ambulance, don’t worry, but who did this?’

  Even while Patsy had tended her cousin, she had taken account of the room, the overturned chair, and the fact that Maria’s bag lay open on the floor. The purse, stripped of money, lying beside it, told her plainly who had done it.

  ‘It was Barney,’ she said bitterly. ‘Her husband. Now go for the ambulance, for pity’s sake, and then get Mom and Sean. We’ll have to take the kids up to our house, for I am not leaving them here and I want to go in the ambulance with Maria.’

  Martha and Sean arrived minutes before the ambulance, and while Martha cried at the state of Maria, Sean was too shocked and angry to shed a tear and asked only if she was alive. He saw Maria and Patsy into the ambulance, helped wrap blankets around the children and carry them up to his house, and then he made for the door again.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Martha cried in alarm.

  ‘Where do you think?’ Sean said. ‘I’m going to find him.’

  ‘Ah, Sean, no,’ Martha cried.

  ‘Let him go,’ Andrew said. ‘No man should get away with what Maria’s husband did to her. Sean will feel less of a man if he doesn’t do this. If she was any relative of mine I would feel the same.’

  However, he saw the rage bubbling in Sean and knew he could be piling up a heap of trouble for himself if he sought out Barney on his own. Maybe just now, while he was in this mood, Sean needed protecting from himself.

  ‘If it makes you feel better I will go along with Sean,’ he said.

  Martha didn’t argue any more. After all, Sean had good reason to beat the man to pulp. Poor dear Maria—and on her time too—but her first priority now was to settle the confused children.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The two men strode down Holly Lane, making for the Norton. Sean knew that if Barney had money at all he would make for a pub, and he had the change he had taken out of Maria’s purse. George told them he’d seen Barney earlier in the evening and he wouldn’t serve him until he had paid some off his slate.

  ‘When you do find him, remind him he owes me two pound ten, will you?’

  Sean pulled out his wallet and paid the man. ‘God, Sean, you don’t have to do this.’

  ‘Aye, I do,’ Sean said. He leant across the counter and said quietly, ‘Between you and me, that brute has beaten Maria up tonight.’

  ‘Ah God! Bad, like?’

  ‘Bad enough,’ Sean said. ‘She’s a right mess, unconscious and away to hospital. It’s only just over two weeks till she is due to give birth. Me and Andrew here are out to find him. And when I do, he’ll wish he’d never been born. I tell you, George, when I find the man, I’ll bloody swing for him.’

  ‘No one will blame you, mate,’ George said. ‘Give him one for me while you are about it. You might try the Black Swan, down Aston way. I know he goes there to play cards sometimes.’

  ‘Thanks, George.’

  ‘Drink before you go? On the house, like?’

  ‘No, thanks all the same, George,’ Sean said. ‘When I meet up with the man, I want to be stone-cold sober.’

  They did find Barney at the Black Swan, hard at a game of poker. When Barney saw Sean he paled at the murderous look in his eyes. ‘Get up,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘You and I have business outside.’

  Barney had no intention of going outside or anywhere else with Sean in that sort of mood. ‘I’m busy,’ he said brusquely.

>   ‘Like hell you are,’ Sean said, jerking Barney to his feet.

  ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ one of the others demanded. ‘You nearly had the table upended then.’

  Sean didn’t even hear him. He was staring at Barney, who was shaking in fear.

  ‘Tell him,’ Barney said, appealing to the others desperately.

  The men didn’t know what was up. One of them said, ‘We were in the middle of a game, so I don’t know what you are about, but—’

  ‘I am about beating this little shit here to pulp for the way he has left my niece this night,’ Sean said.

  The men looked uncomfortable and Andrew put in, ‘This is family business, but he has put his wife in hospital tonight.’

  Barney was blustering his innocence and pleading with his card partners not to let this happen. One of the men said, ‘I hear all you say and it’s bad right enough, but I never did hold with two against one.’

  ‘I’ll lay no hand on him,’ Andrew said. ‘This is between the two of them.’

  ‘Take him then,’ the man said. ‘He was bloody losing anyway, and there is nothing I like better than a good fight.’

  They grouped in a nearby alley and Barney was so scared, sweat was running in rivulets down his face. His mouth was suddenly dry and he had trouble swallowing. Someone held his coat, and Andrew took Sean’s. They faced each other, circling slowly.

  Sean was the older, but hardened by physical work, sober and angry, while Barney was semi-drunk and gone to fat with all the beer he had put away. Yet Sean knew it would be wrong to underestimate him: the man had bulk and youth on his side.

  It was obvious from the first that this would not be a gentlemanly fight. Sean was out for blood and the fists he pummelled into Barney’s face left that in no doubt. Barney had a few good punches that winded Sean and battered his face, but eventually, under a barrage of blows, Barney sank to his knees, too dazed even to attempt to protect himself. Sean continued to lay into him until he eventually lost consciousness and crumpled in a heap on the cobblestones.

  Then Sean did something he’d never done before. He remembered how Maria had been and lifted his foot and powered the kick into Barney’s stomach. Sean saw him shudder and moan, but he had no pity for him.

  When he lifted his foot again, Andrew put a hand on his arm. ‘Away now,’ he said. ‘He’s had enough, Sean.’

  Sean shook his head, trying to clear the black mist from his mind and the anger running white hot through his veins. He knew he had come near to killing Barney—had wanted to kill him and would have done so and not even felt sorry about it. This shocked him because never in his life had he wished to hurt another human being. Yet he still said, ‘Enough? While there is breath in his body it’s never enough. Scum like him don’t deserve to live.’

  ‘Come on, Sean,’ Andrew coaxed. ‘Let’s go home now. It’s over. Maybe someone had better call an ambulance.’

  ‘I’ll do it, mate,’ one man offered. ‘But don’t worry, we’ll say we know nowt about it and just that we found him like that.’

  Patsy sat beside Maria’s hospital bed, though Maria wasn’t aware that she was there. Tears rained down the young girl’s face as she looked at her cousin, her face swathed in bandages so that only her eyes were left uncovered. Why, she wondered, had everyone allowed this to happen? She and Martha had both known that Barney was regularly beating Maria up and yet neither had encouraged her to throw him out. Forget all that shit about marrying for better or worse. Nowhere in the wedding service did it say a man had the right to hit his wife, never mind render her senseless. Well, if she pulled through this, they must all make sure Barney was never let near her again.

  Sean joined Patsy there. Though a distraught Martha had done what she could with his face, he still bore the marks of the fight: a black eye, busted nose and grazes on both cheeks. Patsy knew without asking how he’d got those marks. ‘Dear God,’ he breathed as he saw the state of his niece. ‘How is she?’

  Patsy fought to control her tears as she said, ‘Bad enough. She is bruised nearly from head to toe and there are a number of ribs broken.’ Her voice wobbled and she couldn’t go on. Sean put his arm around her and eventually she was able to say, ‘They are worried about internal damage too and will be taking her to the theatre tomorrow if she remains stable tonight.’

  ‘What about the baby?’

  Maria shook her head. ‘It’s alive at the moment and that’s all they know. She might go into labour and she is so injured it could be dangerous if she did. The baby could be born alive, dead, or brain damaged.’ She heard Sean’s sharp intake of breath, and she leant closer against him, needing the comfort as she asked, ‘What’s going to happen next, Dad, if she pulls through this?’

  Patsy had called Sean ‘Dad’ for the first time. In other circumstance, that would have delighted him, but it hardly registered then, and he said, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, she can’t go on the way she was,’ Patsy said impatiently, ‘living with that madman because she was once married to him.’

  ‘No,’ Sean agreed. ‘Indeed she cannot. I am taking tomorrow off work and will go off to the Council to tell them the situation. All the locks will need to be changed on the house, for a start, and then I am off to the police station. A man at work was telling me there is some order that Maria can take out, when she is well enough, that will prevent Barney ever coming near her again. Mind you,’ he added, ‘there is no immediate rush about this. Barney will be going nowhere but a hospital bed for some time yet, I’m thinking.’

  ‘I can see that you have been fighting.’

  ‘Fighting?’ repeated Sean. ‘I near killed that man tonight and if it hadn’t been for your Andrew I might have done.’

  ‘Andrew?’

  ‘Aye, he came along with me,’ Sean said, then added, ‘Don’t look like that. He had no hand in anything. He never laid a finger on Sean and likely stopped me ending my life on the gallows.’

  Patsy looked at the good, kind man she had loved for years and knew there would have been no justice in the world if he had suffered because he had rid the world of scum. She was heartily glad Andrew had been there and been able to stop him.

  ‘He’s a good man you have there,’ Sean said. ‘He’s coming round tomorrow after school and helping me move Maria’s things up to our house. Knows a mate with a van, apparently.’

  ‘He’s like you, Dad,’ Patsy said. ‘He will do a good turn for anyone. I think underneath I was looking for somebody like you. I did date a few creeps at college, but for marriage I had to go for gold.’

  ‘As I did,’ Sean said quietly.

  ‘I know. Dad,’ Patsy said, kissing Sean on the cheek. ‘My dearest wish is to have a good and happy marriage like you have with Mom.’

  Later that night, Maria gave birth to a baby boy. She had it by caesarean section, as they couldn’t risk her giving birth naturally. First indications were that the baby was fine, though smaller than they would have liked. The doctor advised the family to have the child christened, just in case.

  It seems dreadful to do this without his mother being there and without even giving her a say in the name chosen,’ Martha said that night, when Sean and Pasty returned with the news.

  ‘We can’t afford to drag our heels over this,’ Sean said. ‘The hospital stressed urgency.’

  ‘I know. It’s just…‘

  ‘I know what she wanted the baby called anyway,’ Patsy said. ‘Martin Patrick if it was a boy.’

  ‘That’s it then,’ Sean said, and gave a sudden yawn. ‘I’ll see the priest in the morning.’

  ‘It is morning,’ Martha said, because the time stood at two o’clock.

  ‘Aye,’ Sean said. ‘I’ll give the poor bugger a few hours’ rest. To tell you the truth, I’ll need it myself. I’m bushed.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Martha said. ‘Don’t we have to decide on godparents? It can’t really be us again, being godparents already to Theresa.’

  ‘And me an
d Tony to Jack,’ Patsy said. ‘There’s always Andrew, though.’

  Andrew was delighted to be asked. As there was no one they could think off to be godmother, Martha decided to do the honours again, for the baby’s sake. The next morning, the little group assembled in the hospital chapel to name the small, protesting baby Martin Patrick McPhearson.

  Maria opened her eyes five days later and wished she hadn’t bothered. As soon as she was conscious, she was aware of pain everywhere. For a minute or two she was disorientated and then the memories came flooding back. She knew why she was in hospital, but how she had got there she didn’t know. There had been a baby inside her, and she felt it that had gone, though she couldn’t be sure. Her hands were heavily bandaged, and so was her body in parts, it seemed. Her face felt stiff, strange, and the tips of her fingers protruding from the bandages felt binding there too.

  A nurse, catching sight of the slight movement, approached the bed and beamed approval at her. ‘Doctor will be glad to see that you are awake at last,’ she said.

  ‘I hurt,’ Maria said, the pain causing her to gasp. ‘Everywhere I hurt.’

  ‘The drugs trolley will be along shortly and we can give you something for that,’ the nurse said. ‘Now I’ll just tell Doctor—’

  ‘No, wait,’ Maria cried. ‘What happened to my baby?’

  The nurse smiled. ‘You had a little boy,’ she said. ‘He was baptised as a precaution, but he is a little darling and we have him in the nursery now.’

  The words spun in Maria’s brain. ‘You mean he is alive.’

  ‘He’s very much alive’ the nurse said with a laugh, ‘and letting us know it. He’s a little fighter. You can see him later if the doctor thinks you fit enough. Your people were here and named him Martin Patrick.’

  She was away then to fetch the doctor. Maria tried to imagine a tenacious little baby surviving such a beating. She longed to hold him in her arms and feel him suckling against her.

  However, she was allowed to do nothing but gaze at him. She was saddened to find that for the first five days of the baby’s life, she hadn’t even known of his existence.