Mother’s Only Child

by Anne Bennett

  ‘All right,’ Maria said. ‘Speak to the doctor. If he’s in agreement and can get a wheelchair then I don’t mind at all. But what about your job?’

  ‘Oh, I start early morning, so I’m finished by the afternoon,’ Barney said.

  In fact they finished long before that—in the early hours of the morning sometimes—and would go home to sleep until hunger drove them to find out if they had anything in the house at all edible. But that wasn’t something he wanted to share with Maria just yet a while.

  The doctor was so enthusiastic about the proposal to take Sam out that all Maria’s worries about it floated away. She trusted Barney to care for him, of course she did, and Sam liked the young man. Still, she arranged for the first outing to be on a Saturday when she could see to her father and be on hand if there were problems.

  It was Sam himself who was the most hesitant. Though he missed the fresh air and longed to go out, he was nervous.

  ‘It’s to be expected, Daddy,’ Maria said. ‘Even putting clothes on after all this time has got to be strange.’

  The clothes Sam had once worn so comfortably now hung on his sparse frame. The effort of getting dressed, together with the fresh air, meant that the first outing wore Sam out so much it lasted only fifteen minutes. A week later it had risen to half an hour.

  By then, Sam was the most enthusiastic of them all. He liked the chance to get out and about around the town, to be pushed to the pier or on the green and to look across the Foyle at the activity on the water and the docks. Sometimes he could hear and see the planes taking off. He also liked the chance to talk to people, to hear the news and gossip.

  ‘D’you know what I’d really like?’ he said to Maria that night after the first half-hour outing as she helped him into bed. ‘I’d like to go to the pub a time or two. D’you think Barney would take me with him some night?’

  ‘I don’t know that you would be able for that.’

  ‘Of course I would.’

  Maria wasn’t at all keen and she couldn’t analyse why not. She asked herself, why shouldn’t her father go to the pub? It was a normal thing to do, for God’s sake. All the same she was glad her uncle was coming up the Friday that Barney had agreed to take Sam to the pub.

  ‘Keep an eye on him, Uncle Sean,’ she said as they were about to leave.

  ‘God, Maria, what d’you expect him to do? Dance naked up on the table?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then, what is it?’

  ‘It’s silly, I know it is,’ Maria said. ‘It’s just that…look, Uncle Sean, Daddy hardly drank much before. He drank virtually nothing at all after the war started and before he began at the Derry boatyard, because he couldn’t afford it. But, well, he’s different now.’

  ‘A lot of things are different,’ Sean said gently. ‘Then he was a man, fit and well able to look after his family and put money on the table for anything needed—money to send his clever girl to college. What does he have now? I’m delighted Barney is taking him out each fine afternoon, but it’s still not much of a life, not compared to what he had. If he takes a drop too much and it helps him cope, can we blame him?’

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ Maria said. ‘I told you I was being silly.’

  Despite the assurances Sean had given Maria, he’d been a little concerned to see the amount of hard stuff—whiskey and poteen—that Sam was drinking each night, certainly the weekends he’d been there. Sam had been a Guinness man, and that in moderation, but he supposed as Barney had begun to bring round the hard stuff there was nothing to do but drink it. He’d advise him to go easy tonight, though.

  However, Sean was soon aware there were no words invented that could stop the drinks piled on Sam that night. It was his first foray into the pub since the accident and, as it was Friday, many of his old workmates were in there. Everyone wanted to clap him on the back and buy him a pint. Those workmates not there were sent for, and those passing in the street came into the pub on hearing Sam Foley was in there.

  Rafferty’s had never done such trade. The noise, laughter, cigarette smoke and Guinness gave Sam back some of his pride, and when people sat beside him at the table, he was the same height as everyone else.

  In the end, Sean had to hold Sam upright in the wheelchair while Barney pushed him home at just turned ten o’clock, for the man was very nearly comatose.

  ‘I couldn’t help it,’ Sean said to Maria when he saw her eyes flashing fire. ‘None of us could.’

  ‘It’s because it was his first time out,’ Barney said.

  ‘I had little myself,’ Sean said. ‘I’ll see to him, if you like. And I’m sure Barney here will stay for a cup of tea.’

  ‘No, no, I won’t, if you don’t mind,’ Barney said with a glance at the clock. ‘I said I’d meet Seamus later.’

  When Barney let himself out, he slunk away in the shadows, down the hill and out of the town to the dark entry where Seamus was waiting in the lorry.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘I had to take Sam home,’ Barney said. ‘You mind I said I was taking him to the pub? I couldn’t leave him with Sean. He couldn’t sit upright even. Talk about legless.’

  ‘I’ll give you legless if you don’t get in this sodding lorry and quick,’ Seamus said, revving the engine as Barney leapt in. ‘Ten o’clock we’re supposed to start from here. You know this all boils down to timing. Can’t have them hanging about waiting for stuff.’

  ‘OK, I know,’ Barney said. ‘And I am sorry. It was his first night, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Filled that full of booze, it might be his last,’ Seamus said, and added callously, ‘Get him home for half-nine in future. It’s late enough for a cripple like him to be out anyway.’

  ‘That’s a bloody awful thing to say, Seamus.’

  ‘Look, Sonny Jim,’ Seamus snarled, ‘we’re not running a charity. This is how we live and I don’t see you complaining when you get your cut.’

  ‘No…‘

  ‘Well, then. Do what you like with whoever you like, but be here on bloody time or else.’

  Barney knew what the ‘else’ meant. He’d been on the receiving end of it enough times and even now, fully grown as he was, he was frightened of his brother. ‘OK, OK. Keep your bloody hair on.’

  ‘As long as we get it straight,’ Seamus said grimly and he let out the throttle and the lorry roared through the back roads on its way to Derry.

  ‘Haven’t you sweetened up that girl enough to go out with you yet?’ Seamus asked Barney towards the end of June. ‘You’ve spent enough time with the father.’

  ‘I don’t take Sam out because of Maria,’ Barney said. ‘I did at first, but not now.’ Sam’s first trip to the pub was not his last and now he usually went once or twice a week. If Sean wasn’t there to take Sam home, Barney would deliver him to the door no later than a quarter to ten. He would never come in, claiming he had business with his brother.

  ‘Well, is she nicer to you because of it?

  ‘She’s pleasant enough, but then she’s always been pleasant,’ Barney said.

  ‘She’s had time and enough to get over lover boy, surely to God.’

  Barney wondered if she’d ever get over him. The whole experience had changed her. There had used to be a gaiety about her, the liveliness of youth, but that was gone now. She was still incredibly thin and Barney often saw her looking pensive, her eyes glittering with unshed tears.

  However, he thought Seamus was right. He should bite the bullet and ask her out. What had he to lose? Anyway, how could she hope to get over Greg when she had nothing and no one to put in his place? Derry had plenty of cinemas, and he was sure she’d love to see Springtown Camp, where many of the Americans were based.

  Maria, in fact, knew all about it, for the girls at the factory had told her and she’d seen pictures and reports on it in the paper. The like of it had never been seen in Derry before. It was all landscaped, with circular areas of grass broken up with concrete roads leadin
g to the centre circle, where on the flag pole the Stars and Stripes fluttered. There was also a library, barber’s shop, laundry, theatre and canteen complex that doubled as a dance hall. Soda fountains and an ice-cream machine were installed inside.

  ‘God, Maria, if you go nowhere else in your life, go and have a peep at that place,’ Joanne had said to her one day. ‘Jesus, it’s like something out of the movies.’

  ‘Have you been to any of the dances?’ Maria asked. ‘Just last week there was a big feature about them in the paper.’

  Joanne made a face. ‘I haven’t, worse luck. I would bite the hand off anyone who offered to take me there, though.’

  ‘What’s stopping you just turning up?’

  ‘Well, that’s just it. You see, all girls have to be accompanied by a man,’ Joanne said. ‘And I haven’t got one at the present moment, not anyone permanent. I’m more like playing the field. Anyway, I think it is one of the stupidest rules in the world. Think of all those homesick Americans I could be such a comfort to, if I could just get past the bloody sentry.’

  ‘You’ve tried, haven’t you?’ Maria cried, knowing Joanne well. ‘You have actually tried to get in?’

  Joanne grinned. ‘Aye, I did,’ she said. ‘It was just the once and I didn’t go on my own. I was with a couple of friends and we had fortified ourselves first with a few gin and tonics. Anyway, this beefy Yank sent us away with a flea in our ears. How we’ve laughed about it since.’

  But, despite Joanne’s endorsement, when Barney asked Maria she said she had no desire to see Springtown Camp either now or in the future, and no thank you she didn’t want to go to the cinema either.

  ‘You go nowhere,’ he complained.

  ‘I don’t want to go anywhere.’

  ‘Maria…‘

  ‘Leave me alone, Barney, please.’ She laid a hand on his arm. ‘You’re a good man, Barney, kind and considerate to Daddy. Concentrate your efforts there—they’d be better received—because I am fit company for no one.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?’

  ‘No, really, Barney. I’m fine as I am.’

  She wasn’t. He knew it and so did Bella McFee. A month later she also had a go at Maria.

  ‘Your father has a better social life than you.’

  It was true. As well as going out to the pub on Friday and Saturday nights, where Sam would meet again with all his mates, Barney had started taking him for a few jars after their afternoon walk too. Maria wasn’t aware of this straight away, and even when Barney mentioned it she said nothing. She knew her father was probably drinking far more than was good for him, but he was happier in himself and looked forward to his excursions.

  ‘You’re not still pining for that Greg boy?’ Bella asked.

  ‘What if I am?’

  ‘It’s madness, girl. It’s been over four months now.’

  ‘I know just how long it is, thank you.’

  ‘Rumour is his wife had a little girl; calls her Annabel.’

  That hurt. Hurt like a knife in the heart. That Nancy had her man for her own and now she had a child by him. She had to stop this, get a grip on herself.

  ‘How do people get to know these things?’ she forced herself to say.

  ‘You mind me telling you Maureen Kelsey has a daughter lives in a place called Aston in Birmingham. She saw them first at Mass. Course, it was Greg she recognised and he introduced his wife. She saw at once she was carrying, like, and then she saw her at the grocer’s getting her rations and she had the wee one in the pram.’ She shook her head and went on, ‘I thought him such a decent, honest man—I never dreamt he’d do that to you. Betray you that way.’

  ‘He didn’t,’ Maria said, ‘not really. That business with Nancy was long over.’

  ‘So he says.’

  ‘He was telling the truth, Bella. I’d have known if he was lying. And when the girl found herself pregnant, what could he do but marry her?’

  ‘Well, she’s having to cope without him now,’ Bella went on. ‘because she was telling Maureen’s daughter she thinks he’s in North Africa. No one’s absolutely clear. You must forget him, girl, and I know that’s easier said than done, but if you were to go out a time or two, you might find it a little easier.’

  ‘You sound like Barney.’

  ‘Barney?’

  ‘Yes. He’s at me to go out too.’

  ‘With him?’

  ‘Aye,’ Maria said, and added with a wry smile, ‘Hardly on my own.’

  Bella had her own views on Barney McPhearson and they were the same as her mother’s, and yet, well, it wasn’t as if Maria was overburdened with offers and in some cases it was better the devil you know. ‘Why don’t you go then?’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Maria, you really can’t go on like this,’ Bella said sternly. ‘You’ll make yourself ill and it’s upsetting your daddy.’

  Maria knew Bella was right about that. Her daddy was worried about her, convinced he was spoiling her life and wouldn’t rest about it, however much she tried to reassure him.

  ‘You think I should go out with Barney?’

  ‘Well, it would do no harm,’ Bella said. ‘Do you like him?’

  ‘Bella, I don’t know what I feel,’ Maria cried. ‘It’s like I’m dead and shrivelled up inside. But I suppose I like Barney well enough.’

  ‘Good God, girl!’ Bella exclaimed. ‘You’re too young to be shrivelled anywhere. And if you like Barney well enough, that’s a start. Go out with him, for heaven’s sake, before you crumple into a heap of dust.’

  Barney had negotiated with his brother to have Friday and Saturday nights free and took Maria to see Fantasia the following Saturday evening. Though Barney had thought it in the nature of a proper date, he didn’t think that Maria saw it that way at all. He told himself it was something that she had agreed to go over the doorstep with him at all and he knew he had to proceed with caution.

  Before Maria left that evening, she’d sat down beside her father and held his hand. Once his face had been as ruddy as Sean’s through being out in all weathers, but now Sam’s face was pale and the skin slack so that it lay in folds. His eyes were rheumy, but still full of love for Maria. When he told her he was happy that she’d agreed to go out with Barney at last, she knew he meant it.

  ‘You’ll have to forgo the pub tonight.’

  ‘Aye, it’ll do me no harm.’

  ‘No harm indeed,’ Maria replied with asperity.

  ‘Ah, Maria, forgive my little weakness,’ Sam said. ‘It’s all the pleasure I have left now and it helps me cope.’

  Maria immediately felt guilty. ‘Shall I run over to Rafferty’s for a couple of bottles of Guinness?’ she said. ‘I’ll have time before the bus.’

  ‘No,’ Sam said. ‘I have a bottle of better stuff,’ and he drew a bottle of poteen from under the covers.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ Maria asked, surprised.

  ‘Barney brought it in earlier.’

  Maria sighed, but said not a word more. Instead, she gave him a glass and went up to get ready.

  ‘You look a picture, Maria,’ Sam said, when she came back into the room.

  ‘You’re biased,’ she replied with a smile, ‘and your brain’s addled with poteen. Listen, now, Mammy is asleep and Dora will be in directly. I’ll knock the door as I pass.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I’ll be all right. Don’t fret. Get yourself away.’

  ‘I will, in a minute.’

  Just then there was a knock at the door. ‘That’ll be him,’ Sam said. ‘Don’t keep him waiting.’

  Maria was impressed by Barney’s appearance. He was wearing the suit he wore to Mass. His shirt was pristine white and not creased. His shoes were highly polished and she smelt the Brylcreem and knew he’d tried to curb his unruly curls, but not terribly successfully.

  However well Barney looked, though, Maria was convinced she was making a mistake in agreeing to go out with him at all. Her stiffness and stance told Barn
ey quite clearly that she would reject any move towards greater intimacy and so he didn’t even try to put an arm around her shoulder, or hold her hand as they made their way to the bus stop Then she’d sat beside him in the bus as if she was a lump of wood.

  It was slightly better when they got to the cinema. Although Maria did hold her body away from him pointedly at first, she did relax more as she began to enjoy the film. It was by the American, Walt Disney, whom everyone seemed to be talking about. Maria thought that if her opinion had been asked before she had seen it she would have said she wouldn’t be interested in it at all. With all the animation and such, it sounded like something for weans surely. However, she found herself fascinated by it. She was glad it was as unlike the films she’d seen when she was with Greg as it was possible to be.

  When they arrived home, it was to find her father fast asleep and Dora dozing in the chair. Maria’s conscience smote her. Dora and her daughter had been so supportive, she felt she’d never be able to repay the debt. Without them, not only would she not have got out tonight, but she’d not have been able to work and what would they have done then? No one can live on fresh air.

  Gently, she shook Dora awake. ‘Do you want a cup of tea, or do you want to go straight home?’ she asked as Dora struggled to sit up straighter, her eyes still heavy with sleep.

  ‘Tell you the truth, Maria, I need my bed more than a drink,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll walk home with you,’ Barney said.

  ‘It’s just down the street. What d’you think would happen me?’

  ‘Well, I’m leaving anyway, aren’t I?’ Barney said, casting an eye in Maria’s direction. She knew she should offer him a drink of some such, say it was no bother, insist even, but she was too weary to play those sort of games and so she said, ‘If you don’t mind, Barney. I’m tired too.’

  The flash of disappointment was gone in an instant. ‘Did you enjoy tonight?’

  ‘I did very much,’ Maria said sincerely. ‘Thank you for taking me.’