by Joan Lingard
‘Going to what?’
‘Live in a cottage in the country.’ She shrugged. ‘That was all.’
‘That was a lot. And you’re still going to do it, Brede. You’ve got to!’ Colour surged in Kevin’s cheeks. He went on even more urgently, ‘It’ll be peaceful and quiet and you’ve always loved the country. I’ll see to it that you get there. You’ve done your share for the family. You’ve been the one to get landed with all the jobs, stay at home and look after the kids. I remember you cooking the dinner when you were only as high as the stove when Ma was in hospital having one of the babies.’
When he stopped speaking Brede gave him a small smile. Her eyes were sad. She knew it was true that she had had to do much for the family, she had had little chance of childhood and had not minded for it had all seemed to be natural and expected, but she did not believe it when Kevin told her that she would still go to Tyrone and live in the little farm worker’s cottage and keep a few hens and plant flowers around the door. And each night Robert would come back from work with his boots thick with mud, his face ruddy from sun and wind, and she would –
‘It can’t be,’ she said.
‘Yes, it can. I will look after them now. After all, it’s my place to. As Ma said, I’m the head of the family.’
‘But you’ve got Sadie,’ said Brede.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sadie read Kevin’s letter for the third time. It was not that it said much but it was all the contact that she had with him. He had written it two days ago on cheap blue lined paper.
He said that his mother was not at all well and he was worried about her, and that Gerald was wild and he was worried about him, and Brede was engaged to be married and he was worried about her for she said that now she could not get married. He did not say that he was worried about Sadie left alone in London. At once Sadie was ashamed of her thought. Indeed she was glad that he had not said he was worried about her for he had faith that she could fend for herself and survive.
By now his father would be buried. But Kevin had not said when he would be coming back. He had ended the letter, ‘Love Kevin’ and two crosses. The word love looked awkward as if he had found it difficult to write. But he did love her. Of course he did!
‘Dear help us!’ she said aloud. ‘I’ll be going round the twist if I start imagining things.’
Her meal, two frozen hamburgers and a grilled tomato, had grown cold whilst she was reading. She pushed the plate aside and took out a pad of writing paper.
‘Dear Kevin,’ she wrote. And then she stopped and bit the end of the biro pen. Neither of them was much good when it came to writing letters. ‘I am missing you.’ No, she could not write that for he might feel guilty and think he ought to rush back at once. But she wanted him to rush back. ‘I am sorry that your mother is not well,’ she wrote. ‘And that Gerald is so wild. It must be a big worry for you. Tell Brede that she must get married.’ Sadie stopped. Tell Brede that she must get married? What was so great about being married when you were only seventeen years old and had to spend half the time sitting in a grotty room with no money to buy clothes or go out and have a good time? Maybe she should cross that out and put instead, ‘Tell Brede that she has plenty of time to get married in.’ She scribbled on the inside cover of the writing pad. What else could she say to him? ‘I had a boring awful day at work. Miss Cullen was in a bad mood and scowled at everybody. The girls were all giggling about a party they had been to last night. I am fed up sitting in this room and don’t think I can stand it much longer. Love Sadie.’ She grinned. That might bring him back. But of course she would not write it.
She sighed, got up, stretched herself and went to the window. It was dark in the street but most of the windows of the houses were lit. She had another evening to fill and not even Kevin to come back at the end of it to give her a kiss and ruffle her hair with his hand. She could go along and visit Mr Dooley but she had done that last night. Some boys went past on the pavement laughing and jostling one another. She returned to her letter.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ she wrote. ‘I am all right. I have been to see Mr Davis and he says not to worry and he is sorry about your dad. Love Sadie.’ She added ten kisses and then folded the page and put it in an envelope. She found a stamp in her purse. At least now she had a reason to go out.
She took a roundabout route to the nearest letter box so that her journey would not pass too quickly. On her way back she came by the Catholic church. Father Mulcahy stood outside talking to a woman.
‘Ah Sadie!’ he called.
Sadie paused. She waited whilst the priest said goodnight to the other woman.
‘How are you, child?’ he asked, when he joined her. ‘Have you heard from Kevin?’
She told him about Kevin’s letter. He said that it was a bad time for Kevin’s family and it was as well for them they had such a fine son to help them.
‘He’s a good boy, Sadie.’
‘Yes,’ said Sadie.
‘You must be proud that he’s doing his duty by them.’
Walking home she thought about that. She supposed she was proud, she knew he was good, but inside her she couldn’t help feeling resentful that his family had to come before her. It’s only natural, she told herself, at such a time, and I am just a selfish eejit if I don’t understand that! At this rate she was going to end up talking to herself! She called at Lara’s.
They were watching a film on television. Sadie sat for a few minutes beside them trying to concentrate and understand what the film was about. A man and woman were quarrelling, shouting at one another as if at any moment they might seize one another by the throat. She did not care if they did. She shifted restlessly on her chair, wishing she could be as peaceful and serene as Lara, who never seemed to move and fidget. Sadie scratched her knee, then her left ankle. She noticed Krishna looking down at her ankle as she scratched it. He looked up and their eyes met. He smiled gently, she put her hand back on her lap. Her ankle itched murderously. She just had to scratch it. She tore at it with her fingers, feeling her tights snag under her nails.
‘I’ll need to be going now, Lara,’ she said, half apologetically. She should never have disturbed their peace.
‘Come again soon,’ said Lara as she showed her out.
‘Thanks.’
Sadie went back to her room. The hamburgers were cold and congealed but she was hungry so she sprinkled salt on them and ate them.
‘What a life!’ she said aloud. ‘Nothing but a mad dizzy whirl!’
There was a stampede of feet in the hall and then someone was knocking at her door.
‘Can we come in?’ asked Rita, already on the way in. She was followed by Sally, Joe and two other boys.
‘Hi, honey!’ said Joe, stroking his fingers across Sadie’s cheek as he passed her.
The boys were carrying brown paper carriers, out of which they lifted cans of beer. They began to take off their coats, Sadie decided she might as well close the door.
‘We’ve come to cheer you up,’ said Rita.
‘Seeing as you’re a grass widow,’ said Joe, zipping open the first can.
‘I haven’t got enough glasses,’ said Sadie.
‘Don’t need glasses,’ said Joe, handing her a can. ‘What’s the matter with the tin?’
Sadie took a can, said, ‘Cheers’ with the rest and put it to her mouth. Beer trickled down her neck and made her giggle.
‘I’d die if I had to sit here on my own of an evening,’ said Sally, looking round.
‘It’s not so bad,’ said Sadie off-handedly. ‘Anyway, Kevin’ll be back soon.’
‘When’s he coming?’ asked Rita, who had made herself comfortable on the bed, with a pillow propped behind her head.
‘Day or two.’ Sadie took another drink.
‘Maybe he’ll not come back,’ said Joe slyly.
‘Don’t talk daft,’ snapped Sadie.
‘He’s just hoping!’ Rita laughed, a big bouncy laugh that came from the midd
le of her stomach.
Soon they all seemed to be laughing. Sadie could not remember afterwards what it had all been about for no one said anything very amusing. But they were in a mood to laugh and for Sadie it was a relief for she felt as if she had been holding all her laughter up inside her and it had just been waiting to escape. The beer went to her head quickly.
From laughing they went on to singing. Sadie was urged to give them an Irish song.
‘Come on, “The Mountains of Mourne”!’ cried Rita, waving a tin of beer in the air.
‘That’s dead corny,’ giggled Sadie.
‘We like a bit of corn now and then,’ said Joe.
‘Oh Mary, this London’s a wonderful sight,’ warbled Sadie and then she broke down in giggles.
Mrs Kyrakis had to knock four times before anyone heard her; at least so she told Sadie when they finally opened the door to see her standing there in her dressing gown, her hair in curlers, and her brow creased with irritation.
‘This noise have to stop,’ she declared, looking into the room. ‘No parties here. I cannot sleep for the pandemonium.’
Joe laughed. She took a step into the room and glared at him. Sadie began to apologize, Rita got off the bed to gather up the empty cans. Mrs Kyrakis shook her head.
‘This will not happen again,’ she declared, stabbing the air with a thick finger. ‘Or you are out!’
She went back down the corridor.
‘This will not happen again,’ said Joe, imitating her accent. ‘Or you are out!’
They all started to laugh again.
‘You’d better go,’ said Sadie. ‘I don’t want to get thrown into the street.’
‘I could come to your rescue,’ said Joe, holding out his arms.
‘Dead right you could,’ said Rita sarcastically. ‘Man, you’re all heart.’
Joe hung back and let the others go out on the pavement in front of him.
‘I don’t have to get home yet,’ he whispered. ‘Me mother allows me to stop up late now I’m big.’
‘I don’t know why I’m sure.’ Sadie tried to close the door but he had his foot well placed.
‘Don’t you like me, Sadie?’
‘You’re all right. But you’re going now.’
‘I don’t fancy you being left here all alone.’
‘You don’t have to worry about me.’
Rita called from the street, ‘Are you coming, Joe? We’ll miss the tube.’
‘You go on,’ he called back.
‘You’re not coming in,’ said Sadie.
‘Why not?’
‘You know why not.’
He shook his head. ‘You’re a tough ’un. Give me a kiss then before I go.’
She allowed him to kiss her. Afterwards, when he had gone, and she leant against the door, she did not know why. She held the back of her hand against her lips, not understanding herself. She felt unclean. She had been unfaithful to Kevin. Then she told herself not to be so stupid, there was nothing all that wrong in letting another boy kiss her. But of course Kevin would think so, and that was what mattered. She would have to be careful, watch herself.
With the gaiety gone out of it the room looked depressing, rumpled and littered, smelling of beer and tobacco smoke. She opened up the window to let in the night air, wiped up the beer spills, smoothed out the bed. She was tired, wanted to sleep, and not to think any more.
But, once in bed, she could not sleep, and lay with eyes open watching the lights flickering over the ceiling whenever a car passed. She thought about Kevin, imagining him asleep, his dark hair on a pillow in Belfast, with his brothers all around him squashed into a tiny room. And she thought of Joe too, as fair as Kevin was dark, Joe whom she did not like so very much, always pretending to be cynical and so sure of himself, and yet probably underneath he felt as small and uncertain as anyone else. She did not know why she should think about Joe, but she did.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mr Kelly came to the house the day after the funeral to offer Kevin his old job back. The scrap business was doing rightly, he said, after a bad spell, he himself was getting no younger, and he could be doing with Kevin’s young strong arms.
‘I’d take you on as a partner like,’ said Mr Kelly. ‘We’d split the takings and one day the business’d be yours, lad, for, as you know, I’ve no son of my own.’
‘Is that not a fine offer, Kevin?’ cried Mrs McCoy, her face lit with happiness for the first time since her husband had been killed. She turned to Mr Kelly. ‘Sure you’re a good man, Dan. I’ve always said so. God look to you. It’s the answer to my prayers.’
Mr Kelly twirled his cap round in his fingers. ‘Ach, Mary, it’s nothing. I’m right fond of Kevin, you know that full well, and I was sorry when I wouldn’t have him back before.’
‘We needn’t go into all that again,’ said Mrs McCoy. She filled the kettle, lit the gas with a plop. ‘It’s all past history and I don’t believe in holding old grudges. Isn’t that all the cause of the trouble we have around us?’
The gas flame hissed under the old kettle. Kevin stared at it, then looked back at his mother and Dan Kelly, who had not even looked at him to ask if he agreed.
‘Mr Kelly, I can’t do it,’ he said.
‘Now, Kevin, you’re not going to keep an old grudge, are you, son?’ said his mother.
‘I’ve no grudge against Mr Kelly.’
‘And you enjoyed working in the yard, didn’t you? Sure you used to come back in the evening as contented as anything.’
‘I know but –’
He sighed. His mother’s tired eyes were fixed on his pleadingly. She wanted him to take the job and bring home the money to help feed the family. They would have to be fed, and Brede did not earn very much as a nursery nurse. Besides, there was the question of Brede’s marriage. His mother had never once referred to Kevin’s. Brede said that she thought her mother had wiped it out of her mind, that she did not want to believe in it and so she never thought or spoke about it. Whenever Kevin tried to lead up to it she changed the conversation. She did not believe he would return to London either, he was home, and that was that. The years of trouble and their father’s death had changed her. It was no wonder, said Brede, they would have to be patient with her.
‘Tell Mr Kelly you’ll take up his offer, Kevin. You’ll get no better one.’
Mr Kelly got up. ‘Think it over, boy, and come down and see me at the yard tomorrow.’
‘You’ll stay for a cup of tea, Dan?’ said Mrs McCoy.
‘Thanks, Mary, but I’ll need to be getting along.’
He left them alone, the mother with her eldest son, her only hope now for any kind of decent life.
‘It’s a fine chance, son. And one day you’d own the yard. You’d be your own master.’
‘But I’ve been working as a TV mechanic, Ma, and going to night school. I like that better.’ He was not giving the real reason, he knew it, he could only skirt round it. He did not have it in him to be so brutal to her. She had had enough.
‘Well, I don’t know as you’d get a job like that here. There’s that many shops have got burnt out. And the money’d be better in the yard.’
She made the tea, set the pot near the turned-down flame. He wondered how many times he had watched her go through the same actions. Outside in the backyard the two youngest children were playing with a broken tricycle, fighting over it, crying and squawking every few minutes, but their mother paid no attention. She had heard too many children squawking in her time.
Brede came in, looked from her mother to her brother, feeling the tension between them.
‘Kevin’s been offered his job back at the yard, Brede. And he’s to be Mr Kelly’s partner! Isn’t that just great?’
‘But, Ma, Kevin’ll have to go back to London,’ cried Brede. Mrs McCoy’s body stiffened. All colour drained from her face; she looked like an old woman, reminding them of their grandmother in Tyrone.
‘We can’t expect him to stay here,’
went on Brede gently. ‘You know we can’t.’
‘Well, we’ll have to see,’ said Kevin.
‘We haven’t enough to live on,’ whispered Mrs McCoy. ‘We’ll starve.’
‘We can get help from the National Assistance,’ said Brede.
‘That it should come to that!’ Now Mrs McCoy’s voice was bitter. ‘I never thought I’d live to see the day, God help us all!’
‘There’s nothing wrong in getting help from the state,’ said Brede. ‘Many’s a one as had to do it before now. Aunt Patsy’s done it for years.’
‘I don’t want to be likened to your Aunt Patsy. She has no pride in her.’
Mrs McCoy gathered herself up and went through to the front parlour where she slept with the two youngest children. Kevin and Brede looked at one another with misery in their eyes.
‘There must be some other way,’ said Kevin.
‘What?’ asked Brede.
‘I’m going for a walk. I need to think.’
Kevin walked through the streets till he came to the River Lagan. There he turned off along the towpath where he had often walked with Sadie when they were courting. They had had to meet in secret, afraid that either of their families would see them and try to separate them. But how could he be married in secret, hide a wife in the house? He grinned at the idea of Sadie allowing herself to be hidden anywhere. He felt a tug at his heart: he was missing her. He threw a stone into the river, watching it plop in the middle of the water. And there was his mother, bent and beaten by the hardness of her life, needing him desperately. Needing him even more than Sadie, who could survive most disasters. But how could he give up Sadie? She was his wife. He had never felt more confused in his life.
He wandered along the river thinking of Sadie running along the paths to meet him, her long hair flying out in the wind behind her, her cheeks pink and glowing, her eyes bright with mischief and happiness. Life burst out of her like a flower opening in a flood of sunshine. He needed that life. He wished she was here now, so that he could touch her, feel her warmth.
Restlessness would not let him return home and he could not face his mother’s eyes. He would go and visit the Hendersons, a young couple they had known and whose children Sadie had looked after. She was Catholic, he was Protestant. They might be able to help him. They were older and had more experience than he.
