But in the dinner hour, after a promise made to the matron that she’d be back as soon as she checked on them at home, she arrived back at the boarding house to be greeted by the flat door hanging open and Julia’s screams choking the hallway. She flew inside to find the babe red-faced, her bed wet with vomit. Liam nowhere to be found.
She soothed the child and changed the linens, stone-faced. Unable to talk save through gritted teeth.
Once Julia was asleep, she paced the living room, or paced over what little space she could find, sensing in that moment Liam’s frustration – his urge to leave or lash out. The stifling over-crowding in the room closed in on her as each second passed. Waiting. The only thing stopping her from packing her bags, guilt over where she might flee and whether in her deepest heart she was looking for the excuse. You can’t leave him. Heaven knows what the dafty would do next without someone to watch out for him.
A minute later, the mine whistle accompanied Liam through the front door. His Cheshire grin might’ve set her screaming, only he demanded first, ‘What are you doing home so early?’
‘Where have you been, Liam?’
The smile faded from his face and she was relieved to think that he’d not gone entirely stupid.
‘Don’t get your bowels knotted up. I only went out for some air while the wean was sleeping. Me head hurts. Must be a change in the wind.’ He grinned at her again, hiking her ire.
She faced up to him and instantly regretted it, trapped between him and the overstuffed chair. No matter, it had to be said.
‘No, Liam. I’ve been waiting here near on an hour. Your daughter sicked up over her bed. The pet was near to choking when I came in. Left home alone. The door unlocked, you gone.’ She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, waiting on his response. Calm. Too angry to be other.
‘Aw, don’t start. The wean’s better now. You said it yourself this morning, bursting your brains to get out of here. What am I, a bleeding wet nurse?’
‘We’ve been all through this, Liam – a hundred times. Me working is just for now, to earn some money. When you’re better …’
‘When I’m better. When I’m better. Stop saying that all the bleeding time.’ He squeezed his forehead between his fingers, grimacing back at her – furiously. ‘I’m not sick, or sick in the head. It’s just the pain. It only hurts – around you.’
The babe started to fuss through the wall; her cries growing to wails while her father continued to rant.
‘You can say what you like to me, Liam. But you can’t leave our daughter home alone – ever again.’ Mary stared at him, decision made, a shake starting up in her knees. ‘And if you want be alone with her, you need to get yourself better first. Get some proper help.’
‘What do you know? Nothing about me. Nothing at all,’ Liam’s voice rose to a shout in her face. ‘You’re always telling me what to do. Thinking you’re better than me, bringing in a wage. Never caring how I feel. Never asking what I want. You never did care what I wanted, did you, Mary?’ Suddenly he was towering over her, hate steaming in his eyes.
Trapped, her feet mired in the battle, so much so she could not step aside for the wean now crying hysterically in the next room. It took every effort to force herself to step around Liam, but he spat venom in his words.
‘You’re not running away this time, Mary. Snivelling like you’re so hard done by. Filling me with the guilt for not measuring up. You got what you bleeding-well wanted. I might not have loved you in that way to start, but I always liked you. I never asked a blessed thing of you.’
Her face might have turned to stone at that. Instantly he recognised her accusation.
‘You wanted the sex, much as me. At least the first time. I am your husband. You were the one who wanted that too. Insisted on it, as I recall. It’s me right, Mary. God and the Church and everything holy will tell you that much. It’s me feckin’ right. If you had to have me name, it’s the least I deserved in return.’ He rasped each word like he’d swallowed the bitterest powder.
She couldn’t argue. And with Julia screaming the place down, she expected the police to come banging on the flat door. The stomps on the floorboards above said the neighbours were listening to every word. Her face flamed knowing such intimacies would be about the building by nightfall.
Liam pressed his hands over his ears, shaking his head, before flinging his arm in the direction of the wall. ‘Can you not shut that brat up? What have you done to our children, Mary? They hear my voice and bawl and whimper. What do you tell them when I’m not here? It’s you making them scared of me, isn’t it? Do you tell people I beat my children? Whip them for nothing?’
His eyes bulged frantic like he really believed she’d do such a thing.
‘You’re being stupid, Liam. Of course I don’t tell anyone any such thing. No-one would ever think such a thing. What’s wrong with you?’
The baby’s cries filled every space. Her screams choking as if on indignation for a miserable family, an unhappy home and parents who hated one another.
Did she? Did she hate Liam? No. But she did not like him. Much as she might understand all his reasons to be miserable. All that had gone wrong for him. But life for them was never meant to be more than it was. Even marriage didn’t mean you had to be happy every bloody minute of every bloody day. Where did he get such ideas?
Her heart ached then – for Julia. Not the wean screaming in the next room, but her namesake. Liam’s beautiful mother, who never but on a rare day spoke a cross word and had graced them all with her singsong voice. Placid, good, gentle Julia.
The type of wife and mother she could never be. She’d always be one to question the justice, or the lack. No, she’d not bark like her mother, or snipe wicked like Joe’s Catherine, but she’d open her mouth if she felt herself wronged without always taking time to consider the other side.
None of it mattered now. She needed to go to the wean. It was not the babe’s fault being born to such eejits.
As if Liam read her mind, he threw out his arm blocking the doorway. ‘We’re going to have this out, Mary. Now. Once and for all.’
Knowing Julia the light of his life and the babe halfway to heaven a week ago, Mary couldn’t believe he meant her to ignore the child choking on her sobs. But then, hadn’t he left her alone?
She ducked under his arm and, before he could register her defiance, she was in the room, stepping around the bedstead and reaching over the sides of the crib.
Liam’s revenge came swiftly, flinging her backwards against the wall. Her elbow cracked on the panelling while a madman stood in her stead – reaching for her child. Lifting Julia up under her arms into the air.
‘Shut, the fuck up, will you? Ain’t it enough you got your maw’s attention every minute of every damn day for weeks? Crying and crying and driving a man mental. Everyone thinks it’s the war, but it’s you. You won’t shut up. Now … be … quiet.’
‘Liam, stop it,’ Mary screamed, tripping on her skirts, trying to get to her feet.
Liam dropped the toddler back onto her bed and glared at the rumpled heap hiccupping hard into the mattress. Terror stealing any whimpers the child might make. He turned back to Mary, loathing ripe on his face. But the next second, it crumpled. Shattered into a sea of recognition and his frantic eyes tore back to the crib, then to Mary. He stumbled out the door with a wail.
For a second, Mary’s throat swelled like it might close over and never let her breathe again. Then she was at the crib, the babe in her arms. The wean’s silence scaring her witless. Then came the crying, Julia’s bawling a relief.
Mary breathed again. For long minutes, she paced the room, forcing each slow step to counter her racing mind. Only the child’s hiccuppy sobs broke the silence, but easing. Until the babe moulded to her shoulder and, with Mary’s fingers running rhythmically up and down the wean’s back, the wee girl’s breath slowed to a sleeping rhythm.
Still Mary did not set her down, knowing once she did her path would be
set. No question in her mind on that score now. She would not risk her children again.
Three weeks ago, she’d asked herself if she’d cast the fear in her mind as an excuse, but now … Liam had proven what she’d once believed impossible.
Had the pain in his head eaten away his good sense? No matter. No matter how sick he was, there could be no excuse. Nor changing her mind. She’d not listen to any argument from her mother either. Or seek counsel from the priest, as Maw would insist, believing the views of the visiting Father spouted in last Sunday’s sermon. The same views, no doubt, taken as Maw’s own too now.
A man who’d never been married, preaching that men couldn’t help a show of temper on occasion. Not when they’d suffered a thousand tortures for King and Country. What burden was it for wives and mothers to carry some small, if bitter load in payment for all the sacrifices made in their names?
Seeing Agnes Holloway, in the pew in front, cringe to the left whenever her husband raised so much as his lips in a smile, Mary couldn’t fight the devil thought a bullet aimed better might not have gone astray.
No, she did not wish Liam dead. But he was never going to admit he was ill. Or seek help. Months of begging had shown her that.
She kissed the damp curls on her daughter’s head, willing the pounding in her breast to slow and her mind to calm. No pleas would change her mind. Not from Liam or from Maw. Not even from God Almighty.
Liam could make no excuse this time. She would never trust him again.
UNFORGIVEN
JULY 1919
Mary closed the door of the bedroom on the babe asleep at last. The living room settled so quiet she could hear the magpies warbling out on the wash-line. Yabbering as if they too had their two-penneth to say about things. As always, the ticking of the clock measured another frigid silence. She shivered, the measly fireplace giving no quarter to the misery in the house.
She glanced around, relieved to find the room empty. She hadn’t heard the front door slam but guessed Liam had gone out. He wouldn’t dare stay. Like as not he’d gone to the pub without a backward look.
She bent to pick up Conor’s blanky fallen under the table. She’d have to go to fetch him from Joe’s before bedtime. Only where bedtime would see them, she did not know. Her decision to leave had not yet taken that small practicality into account. She wound the material of the blanky around her hands and placed the softness up over her face, taking comfort in the warm smell of her son. Knowing she’d never found that comfort where she should – with her husband.
Her mind strayed to the bed in Egan Street, reaching for Conor’s soft skin and rumpling his baby hair. God, how she wished back those early days at Pearl’s. Those first strange days in Melbourne, where the bed seemed big as a boat, the two of them safe inside.
How simple the world had seemed then. But, of course, she couldn’t go back. Hadn’t she told Liam the exact same thing? Only now, there was no place for them to go forward to either.
A strangled cry of anguish broke from her lips as she registered the blond curls visible over the top of the overstuffed chair.
‘Liam.’ Her gasp outed before she could stop it.
The figure in the chair groaned and stood up. Like a man drugged, Liam stumbled towards her, arms outstretched as if pleading.
She took a step back from him and he crumpled at her feet, snatching for her skirts when she tried to step aside.
‘Please, Mary. You don’t understand. Julia’s the one good thing I’ve done since I came back from the war. Now it’s ruined.’
It’s ruined. Never he ruined it. Unable to move, Mary thrust the bit of blanket into her pocket and turned her glare away to the window glass. She’d have thought herself more likely to scratch out Liam’s eyes or beat on his chest for scaring their daughter silly. It was a strange, disjointed emotion to find an absence of anger. In its place, a chill spread through her body as cold as their room in the rows on a mid-winter’s night.
Liam’s sobs penetrated no further than her ears. She suspected nothing could pass through the ice crystallising in her veins.
He tried to reach out to take her hands again, but, to her relief, at her warning glance, he held back. ‘Mary, I didn’t mean it. I would never hurt … never mean to hurt the wean. You know I love her to the stars and back. More than I do my own self.’
When he stopped talking, she was taken by the silence. No boots stamped their protests upstairs now. Probably all ears were pressed to the floorboards, waiting on the next serialisation to play out in number three below. She could have been watching from above herself, so distant did she feel from the man tugging on her skirt hem and beating on his chest. She only vaguely became aware of her head shaking back and forwards like one of those clowns in the carnival arcade. ‘You won’t ever hurt her again.’
Liam’s wretched nails tore at his cheeks and his hair. Red-rimmed eyes pleaded with her to see him.
But she could not.
From some deep place inside of him, an animal wail keened, telling of an agony beyond help, no escaping its fate. He buried his face in her skirts, his bitter tears soaking in.
Similar scalding sobs yearned to break from her own chest then, and, against all good judgement, she longed to collapse in his arms, cry with him for all they had lost. But to do so would be to betray her daughter, forsaken once this day already.
She stood impassive. Knowing she could reach out to the curls she’d once adored and hold that hot, desperate head in the coolness of her hands. Turn Liam’s face up to hers and forgive him. If she had any love left in her heart. If he’d had enough for her and their children.
Liam’s sobs quieted.
Still she stood, not moving the fingers that itched to reach out.
Until Liam stood up, blowing his nose into his handkerchief. Then he picked his hat up off the floor and set it on his head. He stepped up close to her.
She met his eyes and was stunned when they stared back clear and determined. Perhaps something had broken clear in his mind at last.
When he spoke, his voice rang strong. ‘It’ll be all right, Mary. I’ll make things right for you and the weans. No more pain or disgrace,’ he said, glancing up at the ceiling. ‘You won’t need to worry. And, I want you to know, it’s my fault. All of it. But it will be all right now.’
Mesmerised by his eyes, changing from the cold green of a winter loch to the warm fronds of a summer conifer, she did not flinch when he reached forwards and pressed his lips against her forehead, gentle as a babe.
He only broke away when Julia’s cries started up again beyond the wall.
Mary had no chance to even tell him her decision.
He bolted out the door like a skittish roe deer, fleeing the bowman’s arrow.
THE DECISION
JULY 1919
One quick cuddle and Julia fell straight back to sleep. Mary rocked the wean in her arms, willing her to sleep soundly so as she could clear her mind and set it in some direction, any direction away from here. Today the child weighed heavier than usual and Mary’s arms pained with the effort of holding her. She lay Julia down in her crib and left the room, leaving the door ajar in case she should wake again.
The blaze of light gone from the window glass in the hallway told Mary the sun had dipped below the row of pine trees across the road, the afternoon disappearing fast. She peered through the sheer curtain out to the street, making sure Liam wasn’t lurking at the gate or doing the unthinkable and skulking back. No doubt gloating that she’d likely lost her damn job by now, never having thought to phone the matron.
Back in their rooms, she bent to pick up two stray leaves off the arm of the overstuffed chair; brittle, they crunched in her hands. She sank onto the seat trying to ignore the fact she should be on her feet and packing, not collapsing like some aged granny. She closed her eyes at the thought of her mother. Knowing Maw’s probably the only direction she could turn. Maw would take in her grandchildren at least. If only to protect them from the shame
of their mother deserting their father.
What would you prefer, Maw, I stay and something God awful to happen?
‘Ah! Think, will you?’ Mary rubbed her temples as if a rat was gnawing inside her head too. Her mind refused to order, chants from the doctors, Maw and Pearl repeating in her ears. None of it true. None of it right.
How long had she put her faith in professions of time? Well, time wasn’t working. Not quick enough for her and her children anyway.
She could wait on time no longer.
Oh, she’d not bring the disgrace of divorce to Maw. The woman might never recover. But she was going to leave Liam. Today.
And Liam would have to do whatever was right for himself.
Much as Joe might despair, he’d take his son in. At least until Joe threw him out again. Or Catherine did. Perhaps without herself or the children to drive him to tears, Liam might yet improve. Who could know what was in his head?
The man begging her earlier had sounded right enough. He could convince a barrage of doctors and lose half his pension acting normal outside their four walls – when his pride chose – yet act mad as a mullet at home. What indeed was in his head?
Even Liam couldn’t expect things to come right, not after today. For them, it was done and over. Yet he’d insisted he would make things right. How?
Could he turn back time and change things? Roll it forwards to a moment when he was well again? Hateful of her to think it, but it wouldn’t matter now. Wouldn’t change her decision. She could not live with him, even if he woke up well tomorrow. Perhaps if there’d been any real love between them to start, they might’ve overcome their troubles, but … the lack had always been their problem.
As if Liam would ever accept a lesser life than the one he dreamed of. Believed he still deserved. He’d be dead first …
‘Oh, Jesus …’ Mary’s hand flew to her throat. The image of his wretched face burned into her eyes – him kneeling before her, hopeless. Her with her cold disdain.
No Small Shame Page 31