Dancing in the Dark

by Maureen Lee

  For the first time, she wondered what her little boy had been wearing “when Martha took him out into the snow to give to the couple ‘who’d been so anxiously waiting for him to be born.

  One of the baby’s mittens had come off. “You’ve lost a mitt, love,” she said softly.

  At the sound of her voice, the baby turned his head. He smiled straight at her, shook the rattle, and uttered a contented little gurgle. As Flo stared into the two huge pools of green that were the baby’s eyes, she felt a tingling creep down her spine, and knew that he was hers. Martha had given her baby to Nancy O’Mara!

  “Aaah!” she breathed. Her arms reached down to pick her son out of the pram, when a scrawny yellow hand appeared from nowhere and gripped her right arm like a vice.

  “Stay away from him!” Nancy O’Mara hissed. “Don’t think you’ll ever get him back because I’ll kill him first.

  He’s mine. D’you hear?” Her voice rose hysterically and became a shriek. “He’s mine!”

  Flo’s feet scarcely touched the pavement as she flew along the narrow streets, her mind in turmoil. It would always hurt, but she’d more or less got used to the idea that her baby was with someone else, but she would never get used to him being with Nancy O’Mara. She’d get him back, she’d claim him as her own.

  Her face was on fire, and there were waves of pain like contractions in her belly. She had no idea where she was going, but when she found herself in Clement Street, where Nancy O’Mara lived, she realised she’d known all along. Without even thinking what she was going to say, she knocked at the house next door. A woman in a flowered overall answered almost immediately.

  She wore a scarf over a head crammed with metal curlers. A cigarette was poking out of the corner of her mouth.

  The words, the lies, seem to come to Flo quite naturally.

  “I’m looking for me friend, Nancy O’Mara, but she doesn’t seem to be in. I haven’t seen her in ages and thought I’d check if she still lived in the same place before I came all the way back.”

  “She’s out shopping with the baby, luv. I expect she’ll be along any minute.”

  Flo feigned surprise. “Baby! I never knew she was expecting.”

  The woman seemed amenable to an unexpected gossip on the doorstep. She folded her arms and leaned nonchalantly against the door frame. “To tell you the truth, luv, it came as a shock to everyone. Did you know her feller died on the Thetis?”

  “Yes. That was the last time I seen her. We went together on the ferry to Carmell Laird’s. She didn’t say she was in the club.”

  “She wouldn’t have known then, would she?” The woman took a puff of her cigarette and narrowed her eyes. “Let’s see, when was Hugh born?—February, Tommy’d been gone a few months before she told me that she’d copped one.”

  Hugh! She’d called him Hugh! How can I ask if she actually saw Nancy pregnant? Flo was wondering desperately how she could frame such a question, when the woman gave a rather sardonic smile, “It’s funny,” she said, “but Nancy O’Mara’s always kept herself to herself.

  Hardly a soul knocks on that door, yet you’re the second friend who’s turned up out the blue. Actually, she looked a bit like you, “cept she wore glasses. I don’t suppose the two of you are sisters?”

  “I haven’t got a sister.”

  “Mind you, she doesn’t come so often since Hugh was born.”

  “Doesn’t she?” Flo said faintly.

  “No. Y’see, Nancy was one of those women who hides out of sight when she’s pregnant. I’ve a sister-in-law in Wallasey like that, me poor brother has to do all the shopping. Nancy not having a feller, like, this friend used to get her ladyship’s groceries for her.”

  “The friend with the glasses?”

  “ ‘Sright, luv.’

  “Did she have the baby at home or in the hospital?”

  “No one’s sure about that, luv. Typical of Nancy, she just appeared with him in a pram one day. Proud as punch she was, pushing him round in the snow.” She laughed coarsely. “If she hadn’t announced all those months ago that she was in the club, I’d have thought she’d pinched him.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Know Nancy well, do you, luv?” The woman looked quite prepared to talk all day.

  “Not all that well. Me brother worked at Cammell Laird’s and Nancy and Tommy came to his wedding,”

  Flo explained. “I’ve only seen her a few times since.” She was wondering how to get away.

  “Well, she certainly fell on her feet when Tommy kicked the bucket. A bob a week she used to pay in life insurance—I only know because me friend’s husband’s the collector and we used to joke she was planning on doing away with him one of these days, randy bugger that he was. Oh, look, here comes Nancy now.”

  Nancy O’Mara had just turned the corner. She didn’t notice Flo and the neighbour because all her attention was concentrated on the occupant of the pram. She was shaking her head, laughing and clucking. Then she stopped, tipped the pram towards her, and said something to the baby inside. She laughed again. Her face wore an expression Flo had rarely seen on anyone before: a radiance so intense that it was as if every wish she’d ever made had come true.

  “She don’t half dote on that baby,” the woman in the flowered overall murmured.

  To the woman’s astonishment, Flo turned on her heel and walked away.

  When she returned to work more than half an hour late Stella Fritz threw her a questioning look, but Flo wasn’t in the mood to make apologies or excuses. Throughout the afternoon, she worked like a madwoman, well making up for the time she’d been late. She swung wildly between sorrow, rage and loathing for the sister who had so comprehensively betrayed her. But the feeling that towered above all others was jealousy. She kept seeing Nancy’s radiantly happy face; happiness caused solely by the fact that she’d been blessed with the gift of Flo’s baby. For eight months, Tommy’s wife had had him all to herself, nursed him, soothed him, watched him grow; unique, wonderful experiences that had been denied his real mother. There was the oddest feeling deep within Flo, almost akin to making love with Tommy, when she imagined holding her baby to her breast.

  “I’ll get him back,” she swore, but remembered Nancy’s face again and felt uneasy. “Don’t think you’ll ever get him back, because I’ll kill him first. He’s mine!” the woman had said. The way she’d looked at the baby wasn’t quite natural. She loved him too much. Tommy had always claimed she wasn’t quite right in the head, and even Martha had called her funny, a Welsh witch, though it hadn’t stopped her from handing over her sister’s child, Flo thought bitterly. As the afternoon progressed, it became easy to visualise Nancy O’Mara suffocating the tiny boy with that frilly pillow before she’d let Flo have him.

  Perhaps she could snatch him from his pram, take him to another town . . . but Flo knew there would never be an opportunity to steal him. She’d like to bet a hundred pounds that the baby would never be left outside a shop again. Now Nancy knew that Flo had recognised him, she would hang on to him like grim death.

  When her youngest sister came storming in Martha was setting the table. Flo thought she looked furtive and immediately guessed why: Nancy O’Mara had been waiting outside the brewery to relay what had happened that afternoon.

  Now that the moment had come to pour out the rage that had been mounting ever since dinner-time, scream about the terrible injustice that had been done, Flo couldn’t be bothered. “What was the point”?

  Mam was humming to herself in the back kitchen. “Is that you, Flo?” she called.

  “Yes, Mam.”

  “I was just telling our Martha, I ordered a chicken today for Christmas. I couldn’t believe they were taking orders so early but, as the butcher said, it’s only eleven weeks off.”

  “That’ll be nice, won’t it, Flo?” Martha said brightly.

  “Maybe Albert will stay with us this year. You know, Mam,” she called, “it might be possible to put Albert’s name down f
or a chicken as well.”

  “I suppose it might. I didn’t think o’ that.”

  “I won’t be living here by Christmas,” Flo said. The words seemed just to come out without any previous thought.

  Martha’s jaw dropped and she looked frightened.

  “Why not?”

  “You know darn well why not. Because I can’t bear to live in the same house as you another minute.”

  Mam came bustling in with plates of stew. “Sal!” she yelled. “Dinner’s on the table. It’s blind scouse,” she explained. “There wasn’t a scrap of meat to be had in the butcher’s.” She wiped her hands on her pinny. “What was that I heard about someone not living here by Christmas?”

  “Ask our Martha,” Flo said abruptly. “I don’t want any tea tonight, Mam. It’s been an awful day and I feel like a lie-down.”

  Sally burst into the room, full of beans because she’d had a letter from Jock that morning. She kissed her sister’s cheek. “Hello, Flo,” she sang.

  Sally’s evident happiness only emphasised Flo’s all-embracing misery, but she gave her a long, warm hug before going upstairs. To her surprise, she only lay down for a few minutes before she fell asleep.

  It was pitch dark when she woke up. Someone must have been in, because the curtains were drawn. She was collecting her thoughts, remembering the events of the day, when she became conscious of a movement in the room. As her eyes became used to the dimness, she saw that her mother was sitting on the edge of the double bed watching her sleep.

  Mam must have sensed she was awake. “I’ve been thinking about your uncle Seumus,” she said softly.

  “I didn’t know I had an uncle Seumus,” Flo said dully.

  “He died long before you were born, shot by the English on the banks of the Liffey. He was smuggling arms for the IRA.”

  “How old was he?” Another time Flo would have been interested to discover she’d had a romantic, if disreputable, uncle. Right now, she didn’t care.

  “Nineteen. I was only ten when he died, but I remember our Seumus as clearly as if he died yesterday. He was a grand lad, full of ideals, though not many people, particularly the English, would have agreed with them.”

  Mam sighed softly. “I still miss him.”

  “What made you think of him just now?”

  “You remind me of him, that’s why—hotheaded, never thinking before you act. Oh, Flo!” Mam’s voice rose. “Did it never enter your head the trouble it could cause by sleeping with a married man? God Almighty, girl, we were such a happy family before. Now everything’s ruined.”

  Flo didn’t answer straight away. She recalled the first time she’d been on her way to meet Tommy O’Mara outside the Mystery, and the strange feeling she’d had, as if nothing would ever be the same again. It had turned out to be true, but not in the way she’d imagined. Mam was right. The Clancy family was about to break up. Flo could no longer live in the same house as Martha. “I’m sorry, Mam,” she whispered. “I’ll leave home, like I said.

  Things’ll be better if I’m not here.”

  “Better!” Mam said hoarsely. “Better! How will they be better without you, girl?” She reached out and stroked Flo’s cheek. “You’re me daughter and I love you, no matter what you’ve done. I just wish I could feel so charitable about our Martha.”

  “Did she tell you—about Nancy O’Mara?”

  Mam nodded bleakly. “That was a terrible thing to do.

  I wish to God I’d known what she was up to. The thing is, I’ve relied too much on Martha since your dad died. I thought she was strong, but she’s the weakest of us all.

  The only way she can feel important is by meddling in other people’s lives. If anyone’s going to leave home, I’d rather it be Martha, but I suppose she needs me more than you and Sal ever will, particularly if she doesn’t manage to catch poor Albert.”

  “Oh, Mam!” Her mother seemed to accept that she was leaving, and Flo felt the future loom up before her, dark and uncertain.

  “Come on, girl.” Mam stood up with a sigh. “There’s scouse left if you feel like it. Albert’s fire-watching, Sal’s at work, and Martha’s gone to see Elsa Cameron—Norman’s had another bad fall. The little lad’s only two, and every time I see him he’s covered in bruises.”

  “Mam?”

  “Yes, luv?” Her mother paused at the door.

  “D’you think I could get him back—my baby?”

  “No, luv. According to Martha, the birth certificate has Nancy down as the mother and Tommy O’Mara as the dad. Everyone in the street believed she was pregnant.

  Legally, he’s hers, fair and square.”

  “But you know that’s a lie, Mam,” Flo cried. “We could go to court and swear he’s mine.”

  Mam’s entire demeanour changed. “Court! Don’t talk soft, Florence Clancy,” she said sharply. “I’ve no intention of setting foot inside a court. For one thing, we haven’t got the money, and second, there’d be a terrible scandal.

  It’d be in all the papers and I’d never be able to hold me head up in Liverpool again.”

  The raid that night was short and not too heavy. The Clancys usually stayed in bed until the last minute, then when danger seemed imminent, they would go down and sit under the stairs. That night, the all-clear sounded before anyone had stirred, but Flo remained wide awake long afterwards. Where would she live? Would Mam let her have some sheets and blankets and a few dishes? They hadn’t got a suitcase, so how would she carry her few belongings?

  “Are you awake, Flo?” Martha whispered.

  Flo made no sign she’d heard, but Martha persisted, “I know you’re awake because you’re dead restless.”

  “So what if I am?” Flo snapped.

  “I thought we could talk.”

  “I’ve nothing to say to you, Martha. You’re nothing but a bloody liar. All that talk about me little boy going to a nice mam and dad!”

  “Just listen to me a minute. What I did was only for the best.”

  “You mean giving my baby to a Welsh witch was only for the best?” Flo laughed contemptuously.

  “Nancy’s always longed for a child, but the good Lord didn’t see fit to answer her prayers. No one could love that baby more than she does.”

  “I could! And the good Lord had nothing to do with it.

  It was because Tommy hadn’t touched her that way in years. He told me.”

  “I was only thinking of you, luv,” Martha said piteously.

  “I wish you’d change your mind about leaving home.

  Mam’s dead upset, and I feel as if it’s my fault.”

  “It is your fault,” Flo spat. It was all she could do not to leap out of bed and beat her sister to a pulp until every ounce of frustration and anger had been spent. “And you weren’t thinking of me, you were thinking of yourself, about your stupid reputation and what people would say.”

  Her voice rose shrilly. “You couldn’t even arrange the adoption properly, could you? I bet you enjoyed conspiring with Nancy, doing her shopping, being her best friend.” She imagined her sister bustling round to Clement Street, eyes gleaming behind her round glasses, sounding Nancy out, skirting round the matter of Flo’s pregnancy until she had established that the woman would jump at the chance of having Tommy’s child.

  Neither had dreamed Flo would recognise her own baby, because neither had given birth to a child of their own. Flo buried her face in her hands and began to rock to and fro. “I wish I’d had the nerve to leave once I realised I was expecting, I wish I’d married Albert, I wish—”

  Martha sat up. “What was that about Albert?” she asked tersely.

  Flo blinked. She hadn’t meant to mention Albert.

  There was still time to pretend she’d meant something else or used the wrong name, but all of a sudden she saw an opportunity to hurt her sister, not nearly so badly as she’d been hurt herself but enough to wound. Still she hesitated, because she’d never intentionally hurt anyone in her life. A hard voice inside her
insisted that Martha needed to be taught a lesson. “She took your baby and gave him to Nancy O’Mara,” the voice reminded her.

  “I’ve never mentioned it before,” she said lightly, “but Albert knew about the baby. He offered to marry me there and then. He told me about his wife dying in childbirth, and his little girl, Patsy, who died at the same time. He was going to use his savings to buy furniture for our house. In view of what’s happened, I’m dead sorry I turned him down.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “Ask him.” Flo yawned and slid under the bedclothes.

  She didn’t sleep another wink that night as she lay listening to her sister’s sobs, unsure whether to feel glad or ashamed.

  She had less trouble than she had expected in finding somewhere to live. Next day, after asking the twins if they would keep their eyes open for a room to let, Stella Fritz sidled up. “Why are you leaving home?”

  Flo resisted telling her to mind her own business. The woman was her employer and they’d been getting on much better lately. “I just want to, that’s all,” she said.

  “Is it, I mean, are you . . . ?” Stella’s face grew red. It was obvious she thought Flo might be in the club again.

  “I’m leaving because our Martha’s driving me dotty.

  Now our Sal’s married, there’s only me left to boss around. I’ll be twenty-one next year, and I thought it was time I lived on me own.”

  “I see. You can have our cellar, if you want. It’s never used.”

  “Cellar!” Flo had visions of a little dark space full of coal.

  “I’m not living in a cellar, thanks all the same.”

  Stella shook her head impatiently. “I call it the cellar, but it’s really a basement. It’s where the housekeeper used to live in the days when William Square was full of nobs. There’s a few odds and ends of furniture, and I can let you have some stuff from upstairs. The walls will need a coat of distemper. Otherwise, it’s very clean.”

  William Square was becoming a bit seedy, Flo thought when she went to see the basement. There was nothing you could put a finger on, but the gracious houses weren’t being maintained as they used to be.