by Anne Bennett
It was on the tip of Maeve’s tongue to say she didn’t give a tinker’s cuss about making Richard Prendagast feel better when Syd put in, ‘He ran into the road after a ball, did young Jamie. He was playing football – a gang of them were there by all accounts, playing football on the rubble tip. It was young Gary Pritchard’s ball. The father hauled him round here earlier on to tell us.’
Maeve drew in a deep breath. Jamie had deliberately disobeyed her, for she’d forbidden him to play on that tip and he’d almost lost his life because of it. The policeman had been right all along: it hadn’t been Richard’s fault. It wasn’t right to make the man feel worse than he did already and she decided she’d go round in the morning and tell him she’d be pleased to accept his offer of a lift.
TWENTY-NINE
Jamie Hogan was kept heavily sedated for almost five days, and Maeve visited him every day, courtesy of Richard, who accompanied her. She wasn’t really sure when the antagonism she’d felt towards him began to slip.
Like the first fraught evening, when he couldn’t seem to do right for doing wrong, they spoke little in the car on the journeys to and from the hospital, but when they did speak Maeve was civil enough. Richard knew she had more than enough to think about anyway, as for the first twenty-four hours Jamie’s life hung in the balance. Even when he was pronounced out of danger, there was the risk of brain damage, as with any head injury and operation. All Maeve could do was sit by his bedside and pray. With worries like that filling her head, Richard thought it highly unlikely she’d enjoy inane chatter.
But on Thursday evening Jamie eventually opened his eyes and spoke, and though the words were slurred and indistinct, Maeve’s heart seemed to skip a beat. A doctor was hurriedly summoned. He examined Jamie and later was able to give Maeve the good news that from brief tests carried out, the outlook was good. Jamie in actual fact should make a complete recovery.
Maeve was almost hysterical with joy, though she knew Jamie had a long haul in front of him. She wanted to kiss someone, but there was only the stern-faced doctor, the starchy nurse and Richard and none of them would do.
Richard, she saw, was almost as delighted as she was, and when she sank into the car with a sigh, she said, ‘I was so scared that Jamie wouldn’t make it. I thought that was what God was demanding from me – my son’s life.’
As soon as the words left Maeve’s lips she regretted them. She should have kept quiet. Richard would think she was mad. He glanced at her as he eased the car into Broad Street and asked in genuine puzzlement. ‘Why did you think that?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing. Something I did years ago,’ Maeve said, and then to turn the conversation, went on, ‘When my sister went off with my fiancé, I thought that was punishment enough. Did you know I was engaged to Matthew Bradshaw?’
Richard nodded. ‘Grace told me,’ he said, inwardly hurt that Maeve should mention this so casually. It was as if their one evening of passion had meant nothing to her, but then why should it? She’d obviously put it behind her and gone on with her life. It wasn’t her fault if he couldn’t do the same.
‘I was raging at the time,’ Maeve went on. ‘I put Nuala out of the house that very night. I felt hurt and betrayed. I didn’t love Matthew, but I cared deeply for him. I wanted security, respectability and the chance of a decent house and neighbourhood to bring the children up in. Matthew, on the other hand, wanted to get out of the dismal rooms he was in to be a proper father for Angela. We’d been friends, true friends, for years and I’d have trusted him with my life. I never thought he’d do what he did and with my own sister.’
‘Yet when he left, you kept the child?’
Maeve shrugged. ‘It wasn’t Angela’s fault and she had no wish to go.’
Richard thought of all the times he’d resented children just for the fact they were alive and he felt ashamed. But he was still confused by Maeve’s thinking Matthew’s deception was engineered by God. ‘Why didn’t you just confess what you did that was so wrong?’ he asked. ‘Then you’d get penance and that would be that.’
Not in this case, Maeve could have said. But instead she said, ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’
‘I was brought up to it, that’s why,’ Richard said. ‘The Prendagasts were staunch Catholics, but after the blood bath I was involved in, I’m not even sure I believe in God any more.’
‘Did you blame Him for taking your wife and child from you?’ Maeve asked gently.
Richard hesitated. He’d never spoken of it, ever. Few knew anything about Prendagast’s private life and fewer still of his loss. He knew if any had tried to offer him sympathy he would have rejected it. He’d kept his grief all locked away inside himself.
When the war drew to a close, his adoptive mother was just glad to have him home safe, though hardly sound – he was too disillusioned and bitter, but she understood that. She was of the generation of the stiff upper lip and deplored any show of emotion. She advised Richard to put everything, the war and the tragedy he’d suffered, out of his mind and get on with his life. Richard had tried to do that with alcohol and while it blurred the edges, the pain was still there.
And now for the first time somebody was asking him something about his loss, and asking as if she cared about the answer. Richard was glad of the dimness of the car’s interior, as he burst out, ‘Blame God? Maeve, I blamed the whole goddamned world. I blamed Valerie for not using the proper shelters, but taking cover under the stairs, and her parents for encouraging it. And yes, I cursed God for allowing it to happen.’ There was a small silence and then Richard went on, ‘I married Valerie in June nineteen thirty-nine. I didn’t love her, but I liked her well enough after courting her for two years. Thanks to the generosity of my adoptive father, I was able to buy a house. I would have preferred a nicer area than Aston, but my wife wanted to be near her family and they all lived in the roads round and about. I gave in, partly because I liked her family very much, and knew they’d be a great help and support to Valerie while I was away, especially when I knew she was expecting. She was ridiculously proud of the house, which had a separate parlour and didn’t open on to the street, but had a little paved area in front with a gate and our own yard at the back.
‘The war that everyone knew was coming began, and I enlisted in the Royal Warwickshires and sailed to France in November nineteen thirty-nine as a member of the Expeditionary Force. The whole world knows how premature that invasion was, and how men were trapped on the beach at Dunkirk. We knew our only hope of being rescued was to reach the little pleasure boats, bobbing about on the choppy grey sea as if they were at some sort of regatta.
‘They couldn’t come very far in without getting stranded, so we began building pier-heads with abandoned equipment. All the time we were being machine-gunned and bombed. You’d throw yourself flat and see craters open up to the sides and front of you with men buried in them. With me were three good friends I’d had since childhood. We joined up in a fit of patriotic zeal and we’d been through a lot together. We were man-handling giant tyres down to the pier, when we heard the drone of many planes heading our way. There was no cover and we flung ourselves down, trying to burrow into the sand a little, and the bombs came whistling down. There were screams and cries and I lifted my head. Two of my friends were just yards from me and they too looked up, and our eyes met. The next minute, a blast knocked me out of the hollow I was in, and my face and mudcaked uniform and the beach were splattered with bits of skin, bone, blood and internal organs – all that remained of my two friends.’
Beside Richard, Maeve gasped, but he was hardly aware of it and Maeve knew he was back there in the hell of Dunkirk.
‘There was just the two of us left, Charlie and me,’ he went on. ‘Shocked as we were, there was no time to grieve and neither of us could speak of it, so we just got back to the job in hand. Charlie was mown down by the Stukas. I couldn’t believe it – I wouldn’t believe it. I began dragging his lifeless body towards the pier-head. I knew in my head it wa
s bloody useless, but I couldn’t seem to let go. Someone had to near knock me out to get me away. I was riddled with shrapnel myself. I didn’t care whether I lived or died.
‘After I was patched up, I went home for a bit and held my daughter in my arms for the first time. I knew the Battle of Britain raging in the skies was all that was keeping invasion at bay, and I tried to persuade Valerie to move into my mother’s home in Four Oaks. I remember Valerie laughed at me and reminded me she was two hundred miles inland. A lot of people in Birmingham thought that fact ensured their safety. But’ – Richard shrugged – ‘I think her decision had a lot to do with my mother’s attitude. Not that she disliked Valerie any more than she would any girl who was important to me. Valerie was still feeling her way as a mother and thought my mother would probably have made her feel inadequate. She didn’t say this, but then she didn’t have to.
‘I gave in. What could I do? I had a war to fight, but this time I was friendless and wanted to stay that way. Not only my special mates, but other men I’d become fond of had been left behind on the beaches of Dunkirk. I knew I’d not let myself get close to anyone any more. After that I became known as a loner and it suited me to be that way and, to be honest, that’s how I’ve stayed.
‘I lived for letters from Valerie. My mother wrote stiff little missives, but Valerie’s letters cheered me up, telling me little snippets about her family and things the baby did. I spent hours at night dreaming about her and Nina and making plans for after the war. I wanted more children so Nina would not be lonely, and I wanted to be able to show my children the affection denied me, though Valerie and her family had gone some way to tease the stiffness out of me. I know my parents loved me, but neither could show it. I never remember my mother putting her arms tight round me, and the only contact I remember having with my father was a firm handshake the day I began school. I promised myself my own children would have more than that.
‘There was little time for dreaming in the day, as we pushed on through North Africa and we encountered heavy fighting in our bid to wrest Libya from the Italians. Maeve, I saw men semi-conscious, with limbs severed or blown off completely, and others with skulls caved in, or gaping wounds, who lay bleeding to death, or had their innards blown out of their bodies entirely. Some, like my friends, had been blown into thousands of pieces and you walked over the remains of what had once been men. Some screamed in agony, or sobbed helplessly, while others called for their mothers, wives or girlfriends, and some took days to die. And over it all was the smell of death and decay and the pungent smell of blood mixed with cordite and the acrid stink of explosives.
‘I’d cut myself off. I’d become desensitised to death and suffering. I had to, or I couldn’t have gone on. And into this carnage came the news that Valerie and her entire family, including our baby, had been killed. I was numbed by it. I found I couldn’t cry, or howl like I thought I should be doing. It was like they were nothing to me. Just more casualties of war. It wasn’t that I didn’t care. I was bloody heartbroken, but I never grieved for them, not really, and that has always made me feel as guilty as hell.
‘I suppose,’ Richard added, ‘that’s why I tried to blame Valerie – to help me cope with the guilt. The point is, when I did eventually get home, I realised it wouldn’t have mattered where the bloody hell she’d gone that night. The brick-built shelter was a blackened shell, and the few people with gardens big enough to house an Anderson shelter and who had taken cover in them were either crushed to death or blown to pieces. The whole area was flattened.
‘There was only God left to blame then and, of course, other families left intact.’ He gave a grim laugh and said, ‘In my rational moments, I knew this to be a stupid way to think, but most times then I wasn’t rational. Even now . . . Well, until recently I’ve found being around children an uncomfortable experience. But, Maeve,’ he said earnestly, ‘I was trying to deal with the fact that my world had been blown apart. I couldn’t believe I’d survived the war, when others, far more cautious and with more to live for than me, didn’t make it.’
The car had drawn to a stop outside Moss’s yard, but Maeve made no move to get out. She felt stunned by Richard’s account of his war.
Eventually, he gave a long shuddering sigh and said, ‘I’d like you to know, Maeve, that I’ve never ever opened my heart like that to another living soul.’
Maeve felt immense sympathy for the man she’d always felt to be deeply lonely. No wonder, she thought, he’d searched so hard and so diligently for his real mother. She could see his anguished face more clearly in the streetlamp by Moss’s yard. She put her hand over one of his still gripping the wheel, and he turned to look at her. His tentative smile caused butterflies in Maeve’s stomach and Richard held her hand for a moment and said, ‘I’d like to think we are friends at least.’
Maeve was confused. The last thing she intended, and the last thing Richard needed, was to be misled. Whatever Maeve’s feelings, she mustn’t let him know. ‘I’m grateful for all you’ve done for us,’ she said carefully. ‘True friendship takes time to develop, but I like you more now than I ever did. Maybe that’s a start.’
It wasn’t really what Richard wanted and he tried again. ‘My feelings for you go deeper than just liking.’
Maeve shook her head. ‘There’s no point going down that road,’ she said.
‘There was something between us,’ Richard cried. ‘You can’t deny it. Bloody hell, Maeve, I’ve dreamt often of that last evening we had together.’
And me, Maeve might have said. Instead she tried to reason with him. ‘Look, Richard, it’s not you. It’s nothing personal. I’m scared of relationships. I loved my husband dearly and I truly thought he loved me. I don’t know what it was that soured him, but I do know any love between us shrivelled up and when the endearments ceased, the violence began. But I don’t know why, d’you see? I don’t know whether it was something I did, or just something that happens.’
Richard was silent. He would have liked to ask Maeve what she meant by violence; he’d like to hear what her marriage was like, but somehow knew she wouldn’t talk about it.
Maeve had her hand on the handle of the door, but she paused to say, ‘My mammy used to say: you never know a man until the ring is on your finger. And she’s right, I know she’s right. I mean, wouldn’t you think I’d know Matthew inside out? We were engaged and yet he must have been carrying on with my sister behind my back. It doesn’t hurt any more, but it did destroy my trust in all men. That’s why I’ll never marry ever again.’
Well, that was final enough, Richard thought, as he watched Maeve climb from the car and walk across the yard. She couldn’t have made it any clearer, and he went home dejected.
Despite Maeve’s words, after that night any hostility she may have had left towards Richard melted away. She imagined few men returned from war unscarred mentally and it would be rather a hard-hearted man who hadn’t been affected in some way by the things he had witnessed, besides his own more personal tragedy.
Richard steeled himself to meet Maeve’s children when he picked her up to take her to the hospital, and despite his telling Maeve of the uneasiness he had always felt around children, he got on well with them. In fact his appearance in their life came at an opportune time, for Angela had finally agreed to go to stay at her father’s new prefab until after Christmas, so that she could see how she liked it. It was a wrench for them all to lose her, especially for Maeve and Mary Ann, yet Maeve knew it was the right thing for the family to be together and she guessed Angela would never come back to live permanently with them.
‘I must go, d’you see?’ Maeve overheard Angela explaining to a tearful Mary Ann. ‘Because I’m soon going to have a new brother or sister and Nuala needs me to look after her.’
But, despite her initial enthusiasm to live at her daddy’s new house, on the day of departure she wept bitterly, and so did everyone else. That night Richard’s presence with his stock of jokes and funny tales cheered ever
yone up.
There had been distrust of him at first, for Bridget particularly remembered how they’d welcomed Matthew and he’d become part of their lives and then he’d betrayed them all. But eventually even she’d been won over, and that was partly because Richard was aware that Bridget was only a year older than his own daughter would have been. He talked to her as if she was grown up and listened to her opinions, and Bridget, who was slightly resentful of her brother getting all the attention, and ashamed of herself because of it, revelled in Richard’s interest in her. Bridget told Mary Ann it wasn’t as if he were a complete stranger either, for Grace had been going on about him for months and everything she’d said had been good.
So Richard was accepted within the family. As Jamie began to recover, other people wanted to visit him, and Maeve didn’t go so often. But, with the new sympathy she had for Richard, she knew he’d miss driving her back and forth to the hospital. It wasn’t as if the man knew many people in the area, so Maeve decided to ask him to dinner on a Sunday, or the occasional Wednesday evening when she had the time to prepare something, and soon she began to look forward to seeing him.
She always took great care with her appearance then, wearing one of her prettier blouses and best skirts, and high-heeled shoes and nylon stockings. She began experimenting with cosmetics, using a little lipstick, rouge to heighten her cheekbones, and perfume dabbed behind each ear.
She never asked herself why she took such pains and would deny she did to anyone else, but Grace was aware of it and she thought probably Richard was too. She’d seen his eyes light up in approval when he looked at her.
Syd and Gwen Moss and Elsie were aware of the shift in the relationship between Maeve and Richard. Through their concern for Jamie, and with Syd being good about running Elsie up to the hospital with him and Gwen in the van to visit the boy, the three of them had become friendly. United in their love and concern for Maeve, they watched the developments between her and Richard that Maeve described as a friendship with interest.
