Da watched her go, his face turning graver the second Maw out of sight.
Mary could not look at him directly. And Da would not look at her.
Instead she stared around the new Ivor Street kitchen, bare of anything bar a shiny new four-burner stove and a scrubbed wood table and chairs. No indoor sink or neat built-in cupboards like in Hagelthorn Street. The whole house was without a rug or curtain to bless itself, and, as yet, held no real hint of a home. Mary just caught the sob in her throat, it unlikely to ever be home for her now.
The one familiar, the faded picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus hanging over the stove hearth. The kerosene lamp on the table throwing shadows at it, and her right back to the rows.
When Maw stomped back in and slammed the kettle on the stove, a damning sense of the end sent Mary’s stomach churning, along with the suffocating smell of new house paint and skirting varnish, making her wish she could flee to the privy.
To her relief, Maw said little more, but pursed her lips in a way that said it all done and over. The world had ended as predicted, making Mary wish Maw would shout or hurl the poker. Anything other than the silent damnation cutting the breath from the air.
For what seemed like forever, the three of them sat below the shadows cast by the lamp, silhouetting monstrous shapes in Mary’s mind. Monsters she wished would leap down and end her hell and misery.
Then Maw picked up her teacup, sniffing. ‘Well, you’re the one to pay the price, I s’pose.’
The finality in her tone prompted a fresh terror in Mary, as if her mother knew something far worse was ahead than she could even imagine.
‘Why? Why’d you do it, lass?’ Da spoke at last, tears damp on his lashes. His glare accusing as if she’d forced Liam against his will. ‘You knew the lad didn’t want you. He told you in so many ways. All he wanted was to leave. I cannot believe you didn’t have more sense.’
The slump of Da’s shoulders served a stab to Mary’s heart, but his blame stoked a rage in her that in the next breath shrieked out her mouth. ‘Why, because I’m a girl and he’s a boy with urges not his own to fight and control? All I wanted was to show him I loved him and let him love me.’ Her shouts reverberated in the near empty room and down the hallway, damning her throughout the entire house.
‘Enough. Mind your father.’ Maw ended her protest in time to the scrape of Da’s chair. A single tear splashed off his cheek onto the table-top.
And Mary could do nothing. Sooner would she cut out her heart than bring her father to tears, but to watch him pick up his cap and shuffle out the back door without a word, except blame …
She’d no chance to apologise to him later either. Da didn’t come back until the wee hours. Well she knew it, Maw pacing the hallway half the night and kicking the bedroom door lest she dared to shut her eyes.
Maw never uttered a word to her in the week following, nor offered the slightest look of understanding, nor let her touch baby Hugh, nor go near her sisters, as if she were some kind of leper who’d rub her sinful ways onto them. Not even to do Hannah’s hair up in rags, like she’d promised.
She walked around sick to her stomach, fanning the one tiny glimmer of hope left that things might yet come right.
Of course they could. If Liam did the right thing. They’d been friends. Blood friends. Why could they not make a marriage? How much love ran between Maw and Da out of the bedroom? A stranger might think they hated each other at times. Liam didn’t hate her at least.
‘I’ll die of shame telling Father O’Sullivan.’
Mary couldn’t meet the accusation in her mother’s eyes, or Joe Merrilees’ either. Instead she kept her own eyes cast down at the floor. All she could see across the Ivor Street kitchen was the row of legs lined up on chairs facing her. The first gathering in the O’Donnell house not the festive occasion once planned, but one where she expected black mourning curtains hung on every window. Candles lit to ward off the terrible evil fallen on the house of O’Donnell.
Liam had made it clear, he wasn’t walking down any aisle – the gathering about making him see sense. Mary suspected Joe had had to drag him along.
Joe’s feet planted rigidly together flat on the floor. Da sat ankles crossed, his feet twitching backwards and forwards like they couldn’t make up their mind which was to be in front. And Liam …? That one sat one leg flung out in front, the other resting cockily across his knee like it were some casual gathering to discuss how many eggs the chooks were laying, not about his wean on the way and the wedding that had damn well better come first.
When Mary glanced up, she couldn’t believe the hatred burning in Liam’s eyes after her trying to tell him for weeks. The beggar had got himself switched to the afternoon shift, sleeping half the day and avoiding her easily on the weekends. Nicking off early on a Sunday to hitch a ride to Kilcunda fishing. The boy who wouldn’t swim in the Clyde lest he met an eel – like that was to be believed. She’d caught him going into the bank too. Passbook in pocket. Still saving to get out of town – without her, no doubt. Pity he hadn’t gone two months ago.
Was she supposed to raise his wean alone now because he wanted to have his way and go on it too? Not likely.
How did he know they couldn’t be happy? A family of their own and a small house?’ For a second, she caught the pain in his sideways glance and wondered if he were as confused as herself on how she’d stopped being his friend and lovely lassie, become instead the noose around his neck.
She clamped her knees tightly together and clutched her arms taut across her chest. It wasn’t like she was sitting there thrilled at the prospect of waking up every morning next to the lying bugger.
She understood Joe’s bitter scowl but she’d no words to apologise to him. At one time, she’d’ve fallen on her knees and begged his forgiveness, but when his son denied ever putting a hand on her …
Voices blurred around the room. She could only catch the odd word or phrase.
‘… do the right thing.’
‘If his to do … ’
What? The baby growing inside her must be sucking out all her brains. She couldn’t concentrate on the discussion. Or argument, she should say.
She could barely keep her heavy eyelids open. Her stomach grizzled sick inside of her. A sudden rise in voices and scuffle of feet yanked her to her senses. Legs across the room moved as one and Joe leapt out of his chair. His hand wrenched Liam’s shirtfront, dragging his son to his feet. ‘Did you or did you not have marital relations with the lass? Swear on your mother’s name if you did not have the relations with her.’
Liam might be taller, but Joe was rock-solid muscle, having spent a lifetime in the mines. He shook his son like a putrid pit rat, waiting on his reply for long measured seconds.
‘I’ll ask you again,’ roared Joe, shaking Liam to rattle the teeth in his gob. ‘Did you have intercourse with Mary O’Donnell?’
Liam grimaced ugly at her then like every wrong in his life from now on he’d set firmly at her feet.
‘Yeah, maybe I did. Don’t mean I want to marry her.’
‘Marry her you bloody well will, son. Soon as it can be arranged.’
Joe flung Liam towards the doorway before turning to face Da and Maw, his voice flat and the life gone out of it. ‘I’m sorry to the pair of you. And to your lass too. I’m sorry on behalf of my son. Let me know the arrangements and we’ll be there. I’ll make sure we both are.’ He picked up his hat and left without a word of goodbye to any of them.
Mary fled down to the privy to throw up. Not one tear did she shed for Liam’s misery, but for the loss of another dear Merrilees. Joe would never forgive her. Nor would he face down the shame with her parents. Their long years of friendship hung on the thread of her and Liam’s love, or the lack of it. Even the coming babe might not be enough to save it. She hated herself for that too.
Maw made the marriage arrangements without consulting her or Liam. In fact, Maw spoke to her only after she’d been marched along to the prie
st to be forgiven her mortal sin. Even then Maw did not talk directly to her but through Da.
‘Tell your daughter, her marriage is to take place on the fourth at three. She can wear her Sunday suit and we won’t be inviting any other than family to share in our shame. Besides, if she doesn’t tell anyone for now, she can go on working at the boarding house another few weeks until she can’t hide her condition. I doubt those good women would keep her a day if they knew the truth.’
There could be no white dress for the sinner and in Mary’s despair she found herself envious of Winnie’s gown and gossamer veil.
The ceremony passed in a blur with no happy photographs to commemorate the day. She could not bear the shame of the shadow crossing the Blessed Virgin’s face and she promised, if only Our Lady would forgive her, she’d try to be a good and worthy wife. She would make Liam happy. If only he would let her try.
Jane Merrilees offered the only lightness, squeezing her hand on their way out of the church. ‘We’re sisters now, Mary. Won’t that be fun? I always wanted a sister.’
Mary hoped Jane was right but, the next second, turned away to hide her tears, Kate whispering to Hannah.
‘It ain’t a very happy wedding, seems more like a funeral to me.’
Later, Mary could keep no food down and didn’t miss not having a wedding breakfast. All Liam wanted was to take himself off to throw beers down in a club.
He did not move his belongings into her parents’ house that night as planned either, the effects of the drink proving too potent. Da wandered home alone.
‘It’s better your bridegroom comes along tomorrow, right and ready to be a proper husband.’
Long after the rest of the household was in bed, Mary stood gazing into the black gulf beyond the windowpane, swallowing down growing seeds of bitterness. Perhaps it was as much her fault neither she nor Liam were happy. But at least their child had a name now, not the stain she’d feared through too many other long, dark nights.
Besides, didn’t all marriages take time to settle? Look at Winnie and Frank Sloy? Yet, Winnie wrote now, even Sloy was bringing her cups of tea and acting all solicitous about the coming babe.
Mary sighed and blew out the wavering candle. Of course, this was not the wedding night of her dreams but, given how it came about, it was never going to be. She pulled back the cold bedsheets and climbed between them, pulling her nightgown down over her knees and hugging them to her belly.
Teeth gritted, both with cold and sudden fury, the next second, she was grateful for the empty space beside her. If Liam blundered through the door at that moment she’d likely give him the sharp edge of her mind – say things she’d not easily take back.
You have to forgive and get on. You’re married now. No good can come of acting other.
Much as she hated the fact, the damning voice of reason was right. She should be thinking of all the things she could do to make Liam’s life easier and brighter for having a wife. She could bake a little scone for his crib tin and get up earlier than ever in her life to make up his tea bottle and see him out the door to his shift – for surely now he’d go back on the rotating roster and not be coming home every night after she’d be asleep.
No, he did not.
Her new husband fell between the sheets each night too tired to grunt hello and slept in past her getting up and going to work. When he did come into the kitchen he was only wanting coffee or to gulp down the meal set in front of him, offering neither comment nor complaint.
At the lucky excuse of a strike, he took himself off to the long and frequent union meetings. The men refusing to be lowered in the cage by an engine driver who was German, despite the man having driven them up and down the shaft the past four years and him a naturalised British subject, in the country some thirty-eight years.
Even once home, Liam and Da discussed the strike, excluding her – a child, it seemed, not welcome in their talk.
Despite the resentment strangling in her throat, she did all the little things she could, laying out his clothes, heating the water for his bath, but Liam professed to know only the language of the grunt. She kept on in the hope that one day soon he might see the bulge growing in her belly. Connect that the babe she carried was his too – then all might come right in the world again.
Good wife or not, the day was coming when she wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut. The bloom of anger would burst. Then Liam would see her at least.
WEDDED BLISS
JUNE 1915
He did not see. Two weeks later, he was gone.
There were no cross words between them before his going, because there’d been no words. Mary woke to a cold bed.
Not that it had ever been warmed by any love between them, despite the nights she’d lain there wanting to reach out her hand. Not for anything more than just to touch the warmth of him. Feel that one day they might forgive each other and become … What?
She was not concerned when he did not come home in the wee hours. She’d resigned herself to the fact he was punishing her and not going to come around anytime soon. She might even have to wait until after the baby was born. But when Da returned from work the next afternoon, grim-faced and darting anxious looks her way, small fingers of panic began to squeeze the breath out of her.
‘The bugger never turned up for his shift yesterday.’
Mary’s eyes grew tight with fear. ‘Do you think he’s all right, Da? Is he that angry with me?’
‘I don’t know what he’s thinking, but he’s a married man now. His place is beside his wife. He made that choice when he unbuttoned his trousers.’
Across the kitchen Maw clattered the fire-stick inside the range, beating up the flames. ‘You reap what you sow.’
Mary didn’t know if Maw’s spite was directed at her, Liam, or the both of them, but she was never far from knowing Maw considered the whole business her own fault. She wasn’t sure how long she could put up with the reminders.
At least there was one thing she could do.
‘Congratulations on your marriage, Mrs Merrilees.’
Mr McLeish, the mine secretary, pulled out a seat and beckoned her sit. ‘I’m not sure what to tell you, but I do have something I can show you,’ he said, rummaging through a large wooden cabinet by the wall before removing a file.
Mary sat opposite, twisting and untwisting the fingertips of her gloves. The one place she’d thought to find answers on where her absent husband might be or why he might be missing was the mine office. Liam wouldn’t risk his job just to punish her. It was risking her own to rush away early from the boarding house, feigning a dose of the runs. But she had to ask the question.
She didn’t miss that, when Mr McLeish sat down with a single sheet of paper, his eyes glanced over her apologetically and rested overlong on her stomach. She guessed then he knew the circumstances of the marriage too.
‘I think you should read this, Mrs Merrilees,’ he said, handing her the paper.
13th June 1915
Sir,
I wish to inform you that I am leaving your employ on Saturday the 19th owing to my looking to get a better position in the city of Melbourne.
Trusting it will not inconvenience.
Yours
Liam Merrilees
The letter was dated the week previous. Days before Liam had gone. Mary swallowed the bile rising in her throat and hesitated, not knowing how she could ask the secretary if he knew of Liam’s whereabouts. Melbourne, yes, but where in Melbourne? Had anyone sought references? She could sense the man’s embarrassment, made obvious by the way he drew his quill in and out of the ink well, dipping and re-dipping, blotting it on paper and putting it back again.
One thing was clear – Liam’s going was planned. All without a word. He might have gone ahead and married her, but clearly he had no intention of being her husband.
A letter waited on the mantelpiece that afternoon, written in the same hand as the one she’d held that morning.
She wanted to
toss it into the stove without ever reading the words. But if there was worse to know, she’d know it. At least then she could hate him.
18th June 1915
Dear Mary,
Da was right to call me a coward. I am too lily-livered to face you.
I’m sorry for lying and letting you down. You didn’t deserve it, but I can’t force myself to want to be married to you. You knew I wanted a different life coming to Australia. I won’t go back down the mine. I’m going to Melbourne.
When I find lodgings and a position, I’ll send for you.
Unless no-one will have me, then I’ll enlist from there. But I am going to do right by you and the wean. At least I’ll try.
It might take me some time but be patient if you still want to be my wife. I’ll send my address on to you soon as I get settled.
Tell your maw and da I’ll make it up to you and them when I can. Until then.
Liam
What could she say to such words? She’d none of her own to add. Every breath snagged in her throat. She’d blamed Liam as hard as she could these past weeks, not letting in a single thought that she’d lain with him of her own free will. Had she plain ignored the facts like Da said? Perhaps, but it were too late now.
She left the letter on the kitchen table where Maw would find it and have her laugh. No. Maw would not laugh. Liam had married her and as such he was expected to rise to his place as her husband.
Mary crept to her room and her bed and curled up, all the sobs in the world pouring out her mouth.
Liam would send for her. He’d given his word. For that she thanked God. Thank you for making him know he’s my husband and writing. Please help him find a position quick. There’ll be no living with my mother till then.
She refused to think of Liam not finding a job. She determined instead to be ready when he did send for her. She’d save every penny, bar her board to Maw, and buy her own damn ticket to Melbourne. Her husband would learn she was not after his favours, or holding him back, but she’d never tell a soul how blessed relieved she was to get his letter. She could hardly wait or dare breathe again until he wrote next.
No Small Shame Page 12