A Mother's Spirit

by Anne Bennett

  She approached Philip’s parents and shook them both by the hand, saying sincerely as she did so, ‘I am so delighted to meet you at last. Philip told me so much about you.’

  Philip’s father, Richard, introduced himself and his wife, Mary, and Gloria noted his gruff voice, realised he was as nervous as she was, and she warmed to him.

  She saw the woman relax a little – with relief, Gloria guessed as she kissed her on the cheek – and say, ‘We are delighted to meet you too, dear, and may I say, I think my son has chosen well. You are very welcome and you may call us Mom and Dad, or Poppa if you would like to, though if you find that awkward, Mary and Richard will do just as well.’

  ‘I thought there was to be a child?’ Richard said. ‘Your son?’

  There was no way Gloria was going to tell them that Ben had run back to his father, but what she did say, careful to keep any trace of sadness from her voice, was, ‘I decided to leave Ben with his father just for now, until I get myself settled.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Richard with a slight frown, ‘I was looking forward to having a child about the place once more.’

  Gloria almost told them then of the child she was now sure she was carrying, but she stopped herself. It was too early. There might be a moment when she would need such news. It might sweeten the pill when Philip explained that they weren’t legally married.

  ‘Did your son not mind?’ Mary asked. ‘Especially with you going so far away and everything.’

  Gloria shook her head. ‘No. Ben loves his father and Joe is a fine man. Just because it didn’t work out between us doesn’t mean that he hasn’t always been a very good father. His brother is at the farm now because he is selling up and he is another favourite of Ben’s. My son is quite happy, I assure you.’

  Mary pursed her lips and Gloria saw it and knew she thought it odd of her to leave her child behind when she had gone to live in another continent entirely. But she said nothing further.

  Richard stepped forward and, picking up the cases, said, ‘Come. We will get a cab. Is this all you have?’

  Gloria knew that most women, even Helen, had far more possessions than she had for starting their new life, but to take more than she had done would have aroused suspicion. There again Gloria had an explanation. ‘There was very little to buy in the way of clothes and things in Buncrana – it’s such a small place – and in Derry the clothes are rationed, but because I don’t live there I had no ration card. Philip said to leave any major clothes buying until I got to New York.’

  Mary nodded her head and said, ‘I see that, and if you can’t find anything to suit in New York, then you are hard to please indeed.’

  Gloria laughed. ‘I don’t think it will be a problem here. Maybe you could help me,’ she added.

  Mary’s homely face coloured with surprise and pleasure. ‘I would be delighted, my dear,’ she said. ‘There is nothing would give me greater pleasure that that.’

  Gloria relaxed still further. She had made the first move to friendship with Philip’s mother and she wanted it firmly established with both of them before Philip broke the news that they had committed bigamy.

  The taxi ride home was uneventful. Richard and Mary pointed places out to her, and though Gloria remembered some, others were very new. She looked about her with interest. She really did feel as if she was coming home, back where she belonged.

  Richard and Mary Morrisey lived on the outskirts of New York in a pretty little bungalow with a little garden all around it.

  ‘Oh how lovely!’ Gloria exclaimed as she stepped from the taxi. ‘What a charming place you have. But,’ she added as she looked all around, ‘I understood there was a garage?’

  ‘There is,’ Mary said. She jerked her thumb and said, ‘Over yonder wall. We didn’t want it too close to the house. I know it is how we earn our living and all, but I don’t want to smell grease or gasoline all the day long. Come in and I will make us a drink.’

  The bedroom assigned to Gloria, which she would eventually share with Philip, was huge, and it was as she went to the window to look at the view that she found the letter.

  ‘That came the other day,’ Mary said from the door.

  ‘But who’s it from?’

  ‘Why, Philip, of course.’

  ‘Is it?’ Gloria said. ‘I’ve never seen his handwriting, just his signature.’

  ‘It’s to welcome you, I suppose,’ Mary said. ‘I will leave you to read it in peace and then if you would like to freshen up, the bathroom is right next door. Supper will be on the table in about half an hour. Is that time enough?’

  ‘Plenty of time,’ Gloria said, anxious for Mary to be gone so that she could open the letter and read the words written by the man she was already missing.

  It wasn’t a love letter as such, although at the beginning, Philip reiterated the deep love he had for her and said how much he was missing her. However, he went on to tell her of what had transpired at the dockside and the threat that Joe had made that he would carry out if they should try to gain custody of Ben in any way.

  He knew that only women married to the sailors were allowed on the ships. I don’t know how he knew, though I suppose he could have found out easily enough. I don’t know what he was doing on the dockside either, or how he knew that you were travelling that day. He would hardly have told me if I had asked. I mean, I wasn’t his favourite person and I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he had really gone for me. He did mention knocking me to the ground and in a way he would have been justified if he had done, but he didn’t lay a finger on me in the end.

  I was so shocked to see Ben there when I had thought him safe aboard ship with you and Helen, and he was hugging his father as if his life depended on it. And, honey, he sure loves that man. It was written all over his face. We must give up all thought of Ben joining us in our new life in the States.

  Gloria let the letter flutter to the ground. This was the price she had to pay for Philip, as Helen had hinted at on the ship. Soon Gloria would start a new life, with a new man whom she loved dearly, and in time she would hold a new baby in her arms, a baby made through the love expressed between her and Philip. However, her beloved son Ben would have no place in that life, and that fact hurt so much she felt a sharp pain in her heart and guessed that she would carry it for always. She felt guilt drag at her, for she had been unfair to the child forcing him to choose between her and Joe.

  So even without the threat of exposure she already accepted the fact that Ben should stay with his father, for both their sakes. She would not relinquish all claim to him, however, and she knew that Joe would not expect her to because he wasn’t a cruel man. Maybe Ben could come on a visit when the world was a more stable place. For now she would write to him every week so that he would know that he also had a mother who loved him dearly.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When Joe got the letter from Gloria saying that she agreed to Ben staying with him, he was so relieved. He had a dread of dragging her through the courts and washing his dirty linen in public, as it were, though he would have done so if he had been forced into it, for Ben’s sake.

  He hadn’t a bother about her writing to Ben or the boy writing back. He knew how much she loved Ben too, and thought the correspondence would be beneficial to both of them. Ben, however, didn’t feel the same way at all.

  ‘Why should I want to write to her just because she has sent you the address?’ he asked his father truculently.

  ‘I just thought you might, that’s all.’

  ‘Well I don’t.’

  ‘Look, Ben …’

  Ben leaped to his feet and faced his father angrily. His face was crimson and his eyes were flashing fire just the way his mother’s used to, Joe thought with a sinking feeling in his heart. ‘Don’t you dare to tell me off, or tell me I should understand. She should be here with us where she belongs. You didn’t even care. You just let her go.’

  ‘I couldn’t stop her,’ Joe said helplessly.

  ‘Yo
u didn’t try,’ Ben said accusingly.

  ‘She had made up her mind, Ben,’ Joe said. ‘Believe me, nothing I said would have made any difference.’

  ‘So, why bother getting married when you can just walk away if you get fed up?’

  Joe didn’t really know how to answer Ben, but he tried. ‘Life isn’t as cut and dried as that, son. You know that your mother was never happy in Buncrana.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ben said. ‘I knew that, but she didn’t just leave Buncrana. She left us.’

  ‘She just fell in love with someone else and, to be honest, Ben, that upsets me too.’

  Ben’s eyes were full of confusion. ‘If you were upset, why didn’t you tell her?’

  ‘Well, by the time I realised that things were that serious she cared about him, that Philip Morrisey, more than she cared for me.’

  ‘And me,’ Ben said.

  ‘No, not you, Ben,’ Joe contradicted. ‘Your mother loves you and she always will. Never doubt that. She wanted to take you with her.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ben. ‘But I didn’t want to go and she wouldn’t listen, and that man was going to be my new father. No one asked if I wanted one or seemed to bother with the fact I had a dad already that I was quite happy with. No one does that to someone they care about.’

  ‘It’s difficult to understand, I know.’

  ‘Don’t say that I will understand it all when I am older,’ Ben said. ‘I hate it when people say that.’

  ‘All right then,’ said Joe. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘It’s what you meant though isn’t it?’

  ‘Probably,’ Joe said and added almost impatiently,’ But look, son, if we talk from now till doomsday it won’t change anything. Your mother has gone. She now lives in America and will not come back. She has moved out of our lives and you must accept it, as I must, because there is nothing else to do. She wants to keep in touch with you, though, and wants to write to you and for you to write back. So how about it?’

  ‘No,’ Ben said determinedly. ‘You said she has moved out of our lives and that I must accept it. Well then, she can stay right out of my life. I don’t want to write to her. I don’t want anything more to do with her and she must accept that because it is the way I feel.’

  The following Saturday, with Kevin and Ben dispatched to the Palace Cinema in Erdington, Joe popped in to see Molly and was delighted that Aggie was there as well.

  ‘Both boys get off all right?’ Molly asked.

  Joe nodded. ‘Tell you the truth, it was a change to see a smile on Ben’s face. He is so angry. I have never seen him like this before.’

  ‘His mother has never left him before,’ Molly pointed out. ‘You must see it from his point of view. His life has changed beyond all recognition. He has been taken from a rural idyll in sleepy Buncrana to live in a flat in a bustling city – not to visit, but to live in for always. He will have to make new friends, start a new school, and learn to live without his mother. It’s tall order.’

  ‘I know it is,’ Joe said. ‘And I do feel for the lad. The point is, he is adamant about not writing to his mother and I don’t know what to do. I mean, I don’t think that it is appropriate for me to write to her. Anyway, what would I tell her – that Ben wants nothing to do with her? I don’t think that would be helpful.’

  ‘No,’ said Aggie, putting the kettle to boil. ‘But if you do nothing won’t Gloria think that you have forbidden the boy to write, or told him nothing at all?’

  ‘Better that than have her think the lad has turned against her,’ Joe said. ‘That might break her altogether.’

  ‘Do you still care for her, Uncle Joe?’ Molly asked.

  ‘In a way,’ Joe said. ‘I got into the habit of caring for her. I couldn’t take her back, though. The girl that I fell in love with is not the same person as the one who sailed away to America. It would never work for us now and so all I hope is that she is happy in her new life.’

  ‘You are a very special man, Uncle Joe,’ Molly said admiringly. ‘Many left the way you were would hope that she would roast in hell.’

  Joe gave a rueful smile. ‘Don’t you get polishing up my halo now. The title of saint in this family belongs to Tom, and, God, will I be glad to see him back.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Aggie said with feeling, looking to see if she had any biscuits. ‘D’you know when it is likely to be?’

  ‘Not long,’ Joe said. ‘The farm is up for sale now, and there has been a fair bit of interest. He can leave it all in the hands of the solicitor soon and come back. I bet Paul will be glad to see him.’

  ‘He will,’ Aggie confirmed. ‘But he knows these things can’t be completed in five minutes and so he told him to take all the time he needed. Actually, most of his concern has been for you and Ben. He said to tell you that there is a job for you in the factory when you are ready.’

  ‘I know, and I will be glad of it,’ Joe said. ‘I thought it better not to start right away, but to get Ben settled first. As you say, it has been one hell of a change for him. Once the schools start up again, and I get him into that, I will feel happier about leaving him. It’s only another week.’

  ‘Where are you sending him, Boldmere Road?’

  ‘No, St Nicholas’s, the Catholic school,’ Joe said. ‘It is only on Jockey Road no distance away.’

  ‘Kevin was changed from the Catholic school when I left,’ Molly said. ‘Kevin said the priest and Granddad had an up-and-downer about it and the priest went away with a flea in his ear. Kevin stopped believing in God, you see, after Mom and Dad died.’

  ‘Ah, can you wonder at that?’ Aggie said. ‘The poor child.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Molly said. ‘It would have been better for him if I had been left here with the both of them. Granddad could have had the tenancy of Mom and Dad’s house changed over, just as he wanted to, and I could have seen to all of us. The next-door neighbour would have helped. She was terrific when Mom was so ill in hospital for weeks before she was killed, and she showed me how to do lots of things.’

  ‘So, it would have been better for you too,’ Joe pointed out.

  ‘Yes, I suppose,’ Molly said. I often thought that when I was in Buncrana, but then I would never have met you and Uncle Tom. There would be a whole branch of the family neither Kevin nor I would know.’

  ‘And if Tom hadn’t come over to see you then he wouldn’t have found me and rescued me from the gutter,’ Aggie said. ‘I would likely be dead by now, and instead I am married to a lovely man and surrounded by my family, which is soon to have a new addition to it.’

  ‘Not that soon,’ Molly said. ‘There’s another five and a half months yet. I think nine months is an awful long time to wait.’

  ‘Gloria used to think that when she was having Ben,’ Joe said. ‘But just think, Molly, the war might be over by the time the child is born.’

  ‘A peacetime baby,’ Molly smiled. ‘But do you think that the war will be over that soon? I don’t know. It seems to have gone on for ever.’

  ‘I know,’ Joe agreed. ‘But we really have got to be near the end now.’

  ‘I don’t know so much,’ Molly said. ‘What about those pilotless bombs falling all over London?’

  ‘The ones they call doodlebugs, because of the noise they make?’

  ‘Those are the ones. People say that when the noise stops they just drop.’

  ‘Must play havoc with the nerves,’ Joe said. ‘Pity those poor people who have already suffered the blitz.’

  ‘I gather that folk are leaving the city in droves.’

  ‘I don’t blame them,’ Joe said. ‘And yet now I know the London spirit, I know that for everyone who leaves there will be twenty or thirty stay and battle it out.’

  ‘At least we can be thankful that they don’t reach this far,’ Aggie said.

  ‘That’s what they said at the beginning of the war about the ordinary bombs,’ Molly reminded her aunt. ‘They soon realised they were wrong.’

  ‘Well, you
may be sure that if they could reach here they would have done so by now,’ Aggie said. ‘But wherever they land I pity the poor people.’

  ‘Think Jerry cares a jot for that?’ Molly cried with a shiver. ‘Look at those death camps that the Allies are liberating now. What the Nazis did to the Jews – it’s, well, it’s inhuman. How can one human being inflict so much pain and suffering on another?’

  ‘Not to mention gassing thousands of them,’ Joe said, indicating the story in the newspaper on the table before them.

  ‘But we shouldn’t be surprised,’ Aggie said. ‘Certainly not Molly and me, anyway. We have both been subjected to men’s brutality.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ Molly said. ‘Look at the way Finch treated you.’

  ‘Well, he’ll hurt no one ever again, thanks to you,’ Aggie said, turning to Joe, teapot in hand.

  ‘If I hadn’t done it Tom would have,’ Joe said. ‘I just think he had done enough already – that Finch really was down to me. Gloria couldn’t see that. I knew that she was worried for me, worried that I might get into trouble or hurt – killed, even. I accepted her concern and yet I couldn’t do what she wanted and just walk away, pretend that what had happened to my sister was no concern of mine. I’ve thought since, though, that the first cracks in our marriage began then. If I had handled things differently when I came home, we might have been able to ride out the storm.’

  ‘But we’ll never know that,’ Molly pointed out.

  ‘No, and it’s very easy to be wise after the event,’ Aggie put in.

  ‘I suppose,’ Joe conceded. ‘Anyway, as Tom said, it is all water under the bridge now.’

  ‘And talking of Tom,’ Molly said, handing round cups of tea, ‘I bet when he comes back, you will meet his lady love.’