Secrets of Our Hearts

by Sheelagh Kelly

  She confirmed this with a shameful nod.

  ‘Oh, well,’ he sighed and nodded, stroking the child’s warm head thoughtfully. ‘That’s all right, love. I can understand you might not want to get involved in our row.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not that, pet,’ she hurried to assure him, handing over his unwashed bundle of clothes. ‘I’ve told you, it’s none of my business who you take up with. It’s just that Mrs Beasty has made it very clear that if I do help you, she’ll let the Assistance Board know, and Norman’ll get his benefits stopped, you see. We can’t afford to get into trouble. Eh, I feel awful after all the rabbits and coal you’ve brought me over the years …’

  ‘Don’t you worry yourself about it, love!’ With this assurance, Niall hoped to disguise his fury, for Juggy had been listening intently. Telling Mrs Whelan that it was quite all right, he would find someone else to do his washing, he waited for her to go inside, before turning his attention to his child.

  ‘Right, you go back’n play with Kathleen now,’ he instructed, trying to sound cheerful, for she seemed to know there was something amiss. ‘I’ve just got summat to do before I have me dinner. I’ll fetch you some goodies when I come back!’

  Then, with no other recourse, he hurried back up the street, and directly to the Chinese laundry – though it was to cost him dear if the proprietors were to rush his shirt through their process, so that he could wear it that night.

  * * *

  As ever, Niall was forced to wait until his children were in bed before confronting Nora. Pre-empting her cry of reproach at the sight of him wearing a clean shirt, he warned his mother-in-law, ‘It wasn’t Mrs Whelan who did it, so you needn’t think she’s gone against you! Bringing that poor soul into it – as if she hasn’t enough on her plate with half a dozen kids and an unemployed husband!’ He made a sound of disgust. ‘You’ve frightened her half to death with your threats.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have to threaten her if you had any sense of decency!’ expostulated Nora. ‘Do you think I enjoy broadcasting my business to all and sundry?’

  ‘Well, before you start going round putting the fear of God into any more of our neighbours, I’ll save you the bother!’ retorted Niall. ‘I’ll be taking my washing to the Chinese laundry in future – see how they deal with your threats!’

  ‘Oh, well!’ Nora ejected her corseted rear from the chair, and charged to where she kept the dirty linen, coming back to hurl a large bundle at him. ‘If they’re happy to do your shirts, you can take your sheets and towels as well!’

  ‘I will!’ Niall shot back, but he left the dirty articles scattered on the floor, and stormed off to see Boadicea at the pub.

  ‘You should have brought them to me,’ the latter told him sympathetically, after he had related all that had gone on that day, whilst she pulled him a pint.

  ‘Nay!’ Looking weary, he waved this offer aside. ‘There’s sheets and all sorts. She’s been doing them up to now, I suppose, because the boys sleep in my bed, and by depriving me she’d be depriving them. But I’ve gone and shot meself in the foot by saying I’ll take them to the Chinks. Anyway, I can’t expect you to do them.’ Exchanging the money in his hand for the glass of beer, he took a sip.

  Boadicea clinked the coins thoughtfully. ‘You’d expect it if we were married.’

  ‘Yes, but we’re not, are we?’ Niall’s voice had turned dull, partly because she had made no headway in finding her errant husband. ‘And if Nora has her way we never will be.’

  Immediately he found his hand pressed by a gesture of affectionate encouragement. Then, having conveyed this, Boadicea began to dry the selection of glasses she had just washed, keeping her eye out for anyone who required serving, for the bar was quickly filling up. ‘When I said you should have given them to me, I meant I’ll shove them in with mine – Ma sends all ours to the laundry.’

  ‘I can’t have her paying!’ he objected.

  Boadicea bent forward to murmur. ‘Niall, don’t ye know she’s filthy rich?’

  ‘Is she?’ He looked astounded.

  ‘Yes!’ Ensuring there was no one to overhear, and also alert for the landlord, who would maybe give her a ticking off for slacking, Boadicea continued the pretence of drying the glass in her hands, as she went on, ‘How do you think she affords to give us such good quality meals on the board we pay her? Her parents left her a fortune. You might not know it from the state of the house – it’s an untidy wreck of a tip, I know – but that’s just the way Ma is. She’s got money stuffed all over the place. I argued with her about it when I first came to live here and found a wad of fivers tucked under the carpet in my room. I thought she was testing my honesty, d’ye see. But no, that’s just the way she is – hates visiting the bank. I’m telling ye, she’s rolling in it.’

  ‘You never said owt before—’

  ‘And when would I tell ye?’ she asked him. ‘In here, or in the pictures, and be overheard by some villain who’d rob her? I didn’t see as it was any of our business.’

  ‘No, you’re right it isn’t,’ he nodded, and took a drink.

  ‘So just give your washing to me. I can ask her permission if it makes you feel better.’

  Niall said it would. ‘And I’ll make what contribution I can. Nora’s not going to beat me.’

  This might hold true, but he knew that his adversary would have a damn good try before giving up. Moreover, she was to possess the ammunition, for, added to her current embargo over his laundry – which caused Niall difficulty enough – some outrageous news was to arrive in Tuesday’s afternoon post.

  Cock-a-hoop at its receipt, Nora could barely wait to inform Niall of the letter’s contents, although somehow she managed to hold her tongue long enough to make an all-out display of it.

  To Niall’s dismay, Harriet was there when he arrived home that evening, here on her first visit as a married woman. Obviously informed that Niall had taken up with Boadicea again, she was on her feet and yelling at him the minute he came in. Thank God the children were out playing.

  ‘I bet you couldn’t wait to get rid of me!’ she railed, before he’d hardly had time to hang up his rucksack.

  ‘Had a nice honeymoon, Hat?’ Sweating and weary though he was, Niall tried to sound bright as he interrupted her flow with a sardonic smile. ‘Where’s Pete? Got sick of you already, did he?’

  ‘Thinking I wouldn’t say owt if you bought me off with a fancy carving knife!’ continued Harriet. ‘Well, you can have it back! I want nowt of yours, you two-timing sod!’

  ‘I take it your mother’s told you then that the kids have approved Boadicea.’ His tone still even, he went to wash his hands.

  ‘There’s summat I haven’t told her, though.’ Nora beheld him strangely as she placed his meal on the table. ‘And something your fancy piece hasn’t told you either.’ There was the gleam of victory in her eye. She pulled a letter from her pocket and wagged it at him as he came out of the scullery. ‘She’s married!’

  Harriet sucked in her breath at her mother’s coup, and listened as Nora read out extracts from the letter, both women eventually turning to look at Niall with expressions that said, how do you like that?

  Inwardly it felled him that she had gone to such lengths to employ spies. Outwardly he remained undisturbed, as he told them, ‘There’s nowt in there I don’t already know.’ And he sat down, and began to cut up his potatoes, releasing small puffs of steam.

  At first astounded, then infuriated, Nora lost her air of triumph and went for him. ‘You mean to tell me, you were aware you’re consorting with an adulterer—’

  ‘Eh, now, I won’t have you talk about her like that!’ Niall used his knife to point. ‘The man she was married to deserted her, so it’s none of her fault. Anyway, I’ve told you there’s no how’s-your-father going on between us.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it! But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s a married woman – and how do you know there hasn’t been any hows-your-father with other men bef
ore you met her?’

  ‘I know.’ Niall growled with certainty, and carried on slicing.

  ‘I mean, she swans in here from nowhere,’ Nora proceeded, ‘hasn’t been here five minutes before she’s picking up fellas – who is she anyway? We know absolutely nothing about her except her name—’

  ‘You don’t need to know anything.’ Niall maintained his level argument. ‘I’m the one who wants to marry her.’

  ‘How can you marry her, you fool?’ yelled Nora. ‘She’s already wed! Good grief, what have you got yourself into? Men, you’re all the same, brains in your pants!’

  Niall felt his temper beginning to rise, but said evenly, ‘I can marry her when she gets a divorce.’

  For a moment his mother-in-law could only gasp in outrage. ‘Well! Well, I’ve never heard …’ And she looked at Harriet, who was equally dumbfounded. But their shocked trance did not last for long. ‘Now I know you’ve gone completely barmy!’ proclaimed Nora. ‘The Church doesn’t recognise divorce, you fool. You’d both be adulterers. What the hell were you thinking, getting involved with her?’

  ‘I was thinking it’s none of your business!’

  ‘Of course it’s my business!’ Nora was echoed by her daughter. ‘It’s my son-in-law she’s trying to get her hooks into, going against his family, against his religion. You’ll be barred from the Church, you know!’

  ‘Well, if that’s the case, so be it,’ declared Niall, finally managing to eat a portion of his meal.

  After another series of exhalations, Nora could only stare at him in anger and pity. ‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘Beesy said she’d pray for you, and my God, I’ll pray for you as well, because you’ll need all the prayers you can get.’

  And then Harriet started on him. ‘Prayers? I’ll give him prayers, the lying, cheating sod, him and that bitch of his!’

  ‘I’m not listening to this!’ Abandoning his meal, Niall knocked back his chair and strode from the house, slamming the door on his way out.

  ‘Well, he’s going to have to listen,’ stated Nora to Harriet, the strength of her intentions writ large upon her face. ‘Because I’m off to inform Father Finnegan about this, right now.’

  After swift consultation of a clock in Walmgate, Niall went straight to The Angel to inform Boadicea that her marriage was no longer a secret. Fortunately, she was the only one in the bar when he entered, the normal clientele probably still eating their evening meal. Even so, he kept his voice low to convey the bad news.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, having forestalled her delighted exclamation with the announcement that someone had betrayed her. ‘It’s Nora what’s sprung all this on me! The interfering old … she got a letter from Ireland this afternoon; must have been wittering on about it to Beesy while we were over there. I’m really sorry.’ His eyes confirmed this.

  ‘And what did this letter say exactly?’ Boadicea’s tone and demeanour had become wary.

  ‘I haven’t read it,’ said Niall. ‘I didn’t have a chance. Her and Harriet set on me the minute I was through the door – didn’t even give me time to have me tea!’

  ‘I’ll make you a sandwich,’ she said at once, and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Niall to fume.

  When she returned with a ham sandwich, he bit into it gratefully and asked for a pint to go with it. ‘I’ll have to pay you later.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Boadicea obviously had more on her mind as she held a glass under the pump. ‘So, you were saying about the letter …’

  ‘Aye, as I said, I didn’t have chance to read it. She just picked out what she saw as the juicy bits.’ He curled his labourer’s fingers around the pint glass she handed him, and took a gulp from it. ‘Apparently, this relative of Beesy’s had been talking to her own priest, and he to the bishop—’

  ‘Oh, great!’ She pushed herself away from the bar and turned her back on him for a couple of seconds, clasping her hands to her face. They were still pressed there, when she turned back. ‘And I suppose he’ll now be writing to Father Finnegan to stop me going to Mass, not to mention anything else …’ Allowing her hands to fall to her sides, she concluded in dull voice, ‘Oh well, I suppose I should be thankful I got away with it for so long.’ The marks of her fingers still on each cheek, her eyes studied him hopelessly. ‘I’m not sure about you, though, Niall. Have you thought what it would mean, consorting with the likes of me? Ye might find yourself barred from Church.’

  ‘Well, what do I care about that?’ His disdainful tone rejected this as a silly argument.

  ‘It’s not just you, Nye, it’s your children – your whole life! People would snub you in the stree—’ She broke off as the landlord poked his head into the bar.

  ‘Oh, it’s me laddo, is it?’ A dour-faced Mr Langan nodded at Niall, then spoke to his barmaid. ‘I thought I heard sounds of trouble.’

  ‘No, it’s just us having a chat!’ Boadicea smiled reassuringly, and the landlord retreated. The moment he had gone, she returned to her topic, hissing, ‘I’m telling ye, Niall, they’ll snub ye!’

  He swallowed his mouthful of sandwich, then washed it down with another couple of gulps of beer. ‘They’re not like that round here.’

  ‘And what about the people your mother-in-law managed to browbeat?’ Her question was punctuated with a cynical nod. ‘They’re like it anywhere, Niall, and they’ll need no encouragement, believe me.’

  She said it with such conviction that he had to ask: ‘Why, what did they do to you?’

  But she picked up a cloth and started polishing the bar. ‘I’d rather not go into it.’

  ‘’Course …’ he shrugged, and took another drink, but he wished she would tell him about it.

  ‘It was too horrible,’ was all she would say. ‘I just want to put it out of my mind.’

  ‘As you’d managed to do before Nora stuck her oar in.’ Niall sounded regretful. ‘I’m really sorry about all this, Bo.’

  ‘So am I. I like York. I wouldn’t want to move away. And now it’s started again.’

  He tried to cheer her up, ‘Nay! We can put up with the gossips—’

  ‘It’s not just tittle-tattle, it’s everything! You don’t know how powerful the Church can be …’

  ‘Oh, I do.’ Niall had turned thoughtful, imagining himself being caned so hard he could not sit down for hours, just for not attending Mass, even though that had been no fault of his own. Faithful to his religion, that did not mean he was blind to the streak of vindictiveness that ran through some of its purveyors. Much as he loved her, he did not want his children to suffer because of this. ‘But maybe it won’t come to anything,’ he said comfortingly, before taking another bite of his sandwich.

  ‘I wish I had your faith.’

  Niall watched her, saying not much else until he finished his sandwich. ‘Thanks for that. I was starving.’ Then another thought occurred to him. ‘Are you going to have to tell your employer?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not unless I’m forced – though I’ll certainly have to warn Ma and Georgie that they might be looking at trouble.’

  ‘At least that’s one set of folk you can depend on,’ he opined.

  ‘I’d like to think so.’ Though Boadicea’s expression showed one could never quite be sure.

  Niall sighed, and took a long pull at his pint, emptying his glass. ‘Chalk me up for another one, love. I’m damned if I’m going home yet.’

  * * *

  Unfortunately, he had to go home some time, though his pace was retarded by a series of angry thoughts. He had put up with Nora for almost eleven months, out of respect for her dead daughter, his wife. But, understandable though her behaviour towards him might be, and beholden as he was for past kindnesses, he could not put up with this indefinitely. At some point, he must ask her to leave – after all, the mortgage was in his name, though he was the one made to feel like a lodger! Well, for a start, thought Niall, as he ambled down a terraced street that led to his own, he could refuse to be hande
d out pocket money from his own wage packet. Maybe that would convey to his mother-in- law that he was about to take a stand.

  The week going by as usual – Nora speaking little to him, he having to collect his laundry from the Preciouses on his way home – Friday was to mark a difference. Like every other man in the neighbourhood, he had always surrendered his unopened wage packet to the female of the house. Not tonight. Tearing it open in front of her, he began to sort the notes, silver and copper coins into piles, finally handing an amount to Nora. ‘There you are, that should do for your housekeeping,’ he told her firmly, putting the rest into his pocket.

  She flexed her masculine jaw, and glared at him. ‘And what about the mortgage, and the bills?’

  ‘I reckon I should be attending to all that.’ Niall was calmly defiant.

  Nora snorted. ‘So you’ll trust a woman you hardly know, but you won’t trust me.’

  ‘Now, be fair,’ said Niall. ‘I’ve been trusting you for years. I just think it’s time I had a say in my own matters – I mean, this is my house after all.’

  ‘Oh, your house, is it?’ Nora scoured him with eyes of steel. ‘You didn’t seem to mind when me and the girls spent years cleaning it, did you? On my blasted hands and knees, and this is the thanks I get!’

  ‘Don’t bloody clean it then!’ he retaliated.

  ‘And does that extend to the children as well?’ demanded Nora. ‘Or the cooking? Or everything else I do for nowt?’

  ‘I’m not having that – you’ve lived here rent free for years!’

  ‘Rent free? What about the contributions our Harriet and Dolly made to the budget when they were working?’

  ‘I’d say it was only right they paid their share – and we’re not talking about them, we’re talking about you!’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry!’ She was not sorry at all. ‘I might not have brought any shekels in, but without me to juggle the wage packets you’d have been in a sad mess after Ellen went – as we all will be if you start thinking you can take over the running of the house!’