Mother’s Only Child

by Anne Bennett

  ‘And I’m telling you,’ Seamus said, ‘the situation has changed. The guards are after P.J. and he has to lie low for a bit.’

  ‘But if they have P.J. in their sights, surely they’ll know the car as well?’

  ‘That’s been taken care of,’ Seamus said. ‘It has a completely new numberplate and a respray, so you’ll be able to drive it in perfect safety, provided you keep your wits about you.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘If you refuse, brother,’ Seamus said, ‘you better get yourself into Derry tomorrow and take a job.’

  ‘What d’you mean? I can still do the runs with you, can’t I?’

  ‘No,’ Seamus said, shaking his head. ‘I’d need to draft someone else in to do both, so it’s up to you, Barney.’

  Barney knew Seamus meant every word he said. Smuggling and the card schools, from which he drew such a comfortable living, would be things of the past. Instead he’d be at some back-breaking job for which he earned only half the money. Yet every time he thought about taking part in any sort of raid, even just driving the car, he felt sick with fear. Seamus saw this reflected in his face. ‘Jesus,’ he said ‘you’re scared shitless, aren’t you?’

  Barney didn’t bother to deny it. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘So what? Any normal person would be scared.’

  ‘I’m not asking a normal person,’ Seamus said. ‘I’m asking you, and I need the answer now. Will you do it or not?’

  ‘What’s the alternative?’

  ‘There isn’t one.’

  ‘Then the answer is obvious,’ Barney said.

  Sean came to see Maria just before he left and he pressed some pound notes into her hand. ‘It’s from the sale of the farm,’ he said. ‘You mind I said you would have your share. I’m not telling Barney about this and I don’t want you to. It’s good for a woman to have a wee bit of money of her own. You don’t know when you may have need of it.’

  Maria put the money into the same account that she put her wages in every week. She had never told Barney of this. Not once had he asked what she did with her wages, and she kept the book hidden under the mattress.

  As the spring rolled into summer the only change was that Barney was out more often through the night, but now he had a regular night or nights off, two or three sometimes. Maria didn’t ask why. Barney had told her from the first it was best not to know and she was beginning to realise he was right. She worried constantly that he’d be caught. If she knew he drove a getaway car in the raids that were now being reported in the press, she’d have been frantic.

  Just after Maria and Barney’s first anniversary, Maria received a letter from her uncle. It was waiting for her when she returned from work one evening.

  Dear Maria,

  I hope everyone is keeping well, as I am myself. I have some news to tell you. I have met a widow called Martha. She is Birmingham born and bred and her man never returned from Dunkirk.

  You’d like Martha, Maria. She is as good and kind as you are yourself. You may have the chance to meet her yet, and before too long, for I have asked her to marry me and she has accepted. We have not known each other that long, but neither of us is in the first flush of youth.

  She has three children. Patsy, the eldest, is thirteen next month and such a clever girl. From her primary school in Aston she passed something called the 11-plus. It’s a very stiff exam, Martha told me, and Patsy has a scholarship to St Agnes’ Convent School a little way away in a place known as Erdington. She goes up on the bus or tram every day.

  There are two boys too. Tony will be eight in April, and wee Paul five in March and we all get along splendidly. They all need a father in their lives and Martha has struggled alone long enough.

  ‘God!’ Maria exclaimed. ‘Sean is getting married.’ She could hardly believe it.

  ‘Another man led to the bloody slaughter,’ Barney said gloomily.

  Maria made no comment, because sometimes the slightest thing she said would throw Barney into a rage, but when she saw him lift his jacket from the hook behind the door she did ask, ‘Are you away to see Seamus?’

  ‘No, just to Rafferty’s for a few pints,’ Barney said. ‘I’d take Sam, but he’s too far gone already.’

  ‘I know,’ Maria said. Her father was already in a semi-stupor.

  ‘I’ll not be that late,’ Barney said. ‘You be ready for me when I come in.’

  Barney, when he was kind to Maria and patient in working her up before sex, could still send tremors down her spine and turn her stomach upside down. He knew that full well. He knew too that when he had sunk a few jars, Maria would be waiting for him, ready and willing, and he whistled as he made his way to the pub.

  Though they had been married over a year, there was still no sign of the child that Maria so longed for. The men at the pub had begun to tease Barney about it.

  ‘No lead in his pencil,’ said one wag.

  ‘Aye,’ another agreed. ‘Must be firing blanks.’ And there was a chorus of laughter.

  Women were kinder, but more insistent. ‘No sign of the patter of tiny feet?’ the women in the factory would enquire now and again.

  ‘No, nothing yet.’

  ‘There’s things they can do now, you know. You want to get yourself seen to.’

  ‘Aye, you and your man,’ said one of the older women. ‘Could be him at fault and they never like to admit that.’

  ‘Surely it’s early days yet?’ Maria said, but she began to feel something was wrong too and wonder whether the miscarriage had damaged her, which was preventing pregnancy. But she kept that worry to herself.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  In March 1944 Martha and Sean were to be married. Sean wrote to tell Maria all about it.

  Martha has a house for sale in Aston, and I had invested the money from the farm. We have bought a lovely house on Arthur Road, not far at all from Erdington village, which has a wide array of shops. A works bus runs the length of nearby Holly Lane and takes me straight to Dunlop’s. The little children are only a stone’s throw from the Abbey School and Patsy’s convent is even closer.

  There seems no reason now to delay the wedding, and it is set for Saturday, 11 March. I know how you are placed with your job and Sam, but it would make the day for me if you could see your way to come over…

  There were tears of joy in Maria’s eyes as she folded the letter and put it behind the clock. Sean had achieved the very thing he craved, the thing he thought lost to him for ever: a wife and children, a family of his own. Maria’s heart filled with love for that good, kind man, and she thanked God he’d been so well blessed.

  ‘I can’t go, of course,’ she said to Barney.

  ‘Of course you can,’ Barney said. ‘You must go. It will make Sean’s day. He says so.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Maria, you’re the only family he has,’ Barney pointed out. ‘You can’t let him down over this.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Will you stop saying but?’ Barney said. ‘Arrange time off from work. Dora and me together will see to your father. Write back to Sean and say you’ll be pleased to go.’

  Bella and Dora agreed with Barney, but Bella commented, ‘I don’t envy them, getting married in wartime Britain. I hear rationing is crippling, even on clothes. God alone knows what this Martha is getting married in.’

  That night, Maria looked at her wedding dress hanging in the wardrobe and remembered how unhappy she’d been the night after her wedding, when she’d hung it up. Now it was going to waste when it could be put to good use.

  ‘But do you have her measurements?’ Bella said, when Maria told her what she intended.

  ‘Course I don’t,’ Maria said. ‘But maybe she could adapt the material for something else, if it doesn’t fit as it is. I shan’t mind at all if she cuts it up.’

  ‘Not everyone is as adept with a needle as you, Maria.’

  ‘Needs must,’ Maria said. ‘If Britain is anything like Derry, posters will encourage them to “Make Do a
nd Mend”. To be a “squander bug” is the worst thing in the world, apparently. And aren’t I squandering my wedding dress, leaving it hanging in the wardrobe where it is neither use nor ornament to anyone? Anyway, I’ll write tonight and see if Martha wants the dress.’

  Martha was delighted with the offer. The problem of getting suitable clothes on the allocated points had been playing on her mind. Maria bundled up the dress and send it to her the very day she got Martha’s letter. She began to look forward to the wedding.

  She was to travel down on Wednesday night to catch the ferry at Dun Laoghaire early on Thursday morning, because Barney said it was best to sail in the daylight. Maria was already nervous enough, because she’d never been further than Derry all the days of her life and she was glad that Barney was going as far as Derry with her.

  ‘My insides are jumping about all over the place,’ she said to Barney on the train, as he put her case on the rack above her head.

  ‘That’s natural enough,’ Barney said. ‘But the break will do you good. And don’t you be worrying about Sam. We’ll see he’s all right.’

  ‘I’ll try not to,’ Maria said. She knew Sam was less trouble than ever, for he was out of it most of the time, but she never stopped worrying about him.

  ‘They’re slamming the doors,’ Barney said. ‘If I don’t get off soon I’ll be travelling with you.’

  Maria wished he was, wished anyone was, but she didn’t say this.

  Barney gave her a peck on the cheek, a thing he seldom did any more, and waited on the platform until the train pulled out before making his way swiftly to the back room of the pub in Derry, where he knew Seamus and Eamonn would be waiting for him.

  However, when he heard what the other two proposed, he couldn’t believe his ears. ‘A bank!’ he cried. ‘Ah, sweet Jesus, Seamus. We’ll never be able to rob a bank, or anything like it.’

  ‘We’re not robbing the bank,’ Seamus said. ‘We’re robbing the men carrying the money. We’ve had a couple of fellows tracking the van’s route for some time and there’s this quiet stretch of road with plenty of cover either side. That’s where we’ll strike.’

  ‘What other fellows?’ Barney demanded.

  ‘What did you think?’ Seamus asked. ‘Did you think we could do this job by ourselves? We are talking big money here, brother. We’ll need another car as well.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To block the road,’ Seamus explained. ‘The car will be stolen and they will drive it in front of the van. We jump in, wrench open the door, clout the guards over the head and Bob’s your uncle. We’ll all be thousands of pounds better off. Now, do you want in, or don’t you?’

  Barney was tempted by the thought of thousands of pounds, and the plan seemed to have been thought out well enough. ‘What a daft question,’ he said. ‘Course I want to be in.’

  ‘So,’ Seamus said, ‘all you’ve got to do is keep out of sight while we deal with the guards and then pull in behind the van with the engine running. We’ll be in and out in no time and it’ll be as easy as that.’

  Barney felt the beginnings of excitement at the thought of it. The sick feeling and the fear had been replaced by exhilaration as each raid was planned and executed perfectly. He thought it the easiest way in the world to make lots of cash. He knew Maria wouldn’t see it like that at all, but she needn’t ever hear one whisper about any of it.

  ‘All right?’ Seamus rapped out.

  ‘You bet,’ Barney replied. ‘Jesus, I can hardly wait.’

  Maria was so weary by the time the train pulled into the station at Dun Laoghaire that she could hardly think straight. Once out of it, she followed the mass of people, who seemed to know where they were going. The size of the ferry unnerved her, but not as much as the grey scummy water lapping against it, or the vast sea, stretching out in the distance, that the ferry would be travelling across. She boarded with great trepidation.

  All her life she had been surrounded by boats—not boats such as these, of course, though now the Foyle was full of boats of all sizes and shapes—but she had never been on a boat before, either large or small. She had a more than healthy respect for the sea, bordering on fear, and she had never learnt to swim. She looked at the mass of passengers on board and wondered how the boat ever kept afloat.

  Before the shores of Ireland had disappeared in the early morning mist, however, she was less concerned with these niggling worries than with her stomach, which was churning in quite an alarming way. She soon began to wish she hadn’t eaten the sandwiches she’d packed for the train journey.

  She wasn’t the only one to be in such dire straits. Many of the passengers had a greenish tinge to their faces. Others seemed to have stomachs of iron and swilled back their pints of Guinness, despite the early hour, until the saloons reeked with the smell of the black stuff. This, mingled with the stink of cigarette smoke, didn’t help anyone feeling the slightest bit delicate.

  When the boat docked, Maria left it thankfully and followed the swell of people streaming into the smallish station and onto the waiting train. She perked up considerably in the train and watched the rolling countryside outside the window with interest until the swaying movement, together with the stress of the journey and the fact she’d had little sleep the night before, eventually overtook her and she slept.

  There were no names on any of the stations, and when Maria awoke, she was disorientated, sure she’d sailed past New Street Station. More seasoned passengers sharing her carriage put her right. They told her where to get off, but she was still mighty glad to see her uncle waiting for her as she alighted from the train.

  His arms went around her immediately. ‘Ah, Maria,’ he said, his voice husky with emotion. ‘God, but you are a sight for sore eyes.’

  Maria leant against him with a sigh, so glad he was there, for the size and clamour of the place unnerved her totally. People thronged the platform, shouting, laughing and crying, while above the noise, porters with laden trolleys were cautioning people to ‘Mind your backs’. A newspaper vendor screamed out his wares, though Maria couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Sean, taking Maria’s case in one hand and holding her arm with the other, steered her through this mayhem, past the ticket collector, to the taxi rank outside.

  How much more alarming it would have been without her uncle beside her, she thought, leaning back in the taxi with a sigh.

  ‘Bad journey?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Unnerving just,’ Maria said. ‘And then I felt horribly sick on the boat.’

  Sean smiled. ‘So was I when I came over. And I’m sorry you had to suffer it too, but I can’t put into words what it means to have you here for my wedding day.’

  ‘Ah, Uncle Sean, you know you mean the world to me,’ Maria said. ‘And the journey is already forgotten.’ She turned her attention to the city centre, shocked to see what a decimated place it was. There were huge gaps where she imagined once stores had stood.

  Sean, guessing at her thoughts from her face, said, ‘Aye, the city took a pounding, right enough. Martha said it was terrifying. Thank God that’s all over now.’

  ‘Are you sure it is?’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Sean said. ‘The war is coming to an end. Mark my words.’

  Maria hoped he was right. Her work might be at an end then too, but she’d have to leave work anyway if and when she was ever to have a child, though sometimes that possibility seemed so far away.

  Stop thinking about it, she told herself firmly. It only saddens you, and you are here to celebrate a wedding.

  So she turned her attention back to Sean, who was proudly pointing out his adopted city to her as she passed. He indicated the big green clock at a place called Aston Cross.

  ‘I live not far from here,’ he said. ‘Until the wedding, that is. Martha, of course, lived here too until she moved into the house a month ago. Grand place for work is Aston,’ he went on. ‘I might have tried my luck in one of the factories here if Kenny O’Connor hadn’t spoken up for me at Dunlo
p’s. They used to turn out all manner of things here too, so Martha told me, though much of what they make now is war-related, of course.’

  Maria smelt a vinegary smell in the air, which Sean told her was from HP Sauce, overlaid by another heavier, sweeter smell.

  ‘Oh, that’s the malt,’ Sean said when Maria mentioned it, ‘from Ansell’s brewery here.’ He pointed out the tall, solid building of light-coloured brick beside the road.

  Minutes later they were at Salford Bridge and Maria saw the network of sludgy canals that met there. ‘Birmingham has more canals than Venice,’ Sean told Maria proudly. ‘Now we go up the hill here, and I’ve told the driver to go the length of Erdington village so you can see the shops that are just a stone’s throw from the house.’

  The taxi driver took them down a wide street, tramlines running the length of it. On each side of the road was every shop imaginable. There were grocery shops, butchers and greengrocers, drapers and haberdashery shops, even a few cafes. About halfway down they passed a churchyard on the right-hand side, graves grouped all around it behind a stone wall.

  ‘Is that the church you go to?’ Maria asked.

  ‘No,’ Sean told her. ‘That’s Church of England, the parish church. We’ll be going to the abbey on Sutton New Road, which is where the wedding will be. Now we’ll be passing the cinema in a minute.’

  That did impress Maria. ‘The Palace Picture House,’ she read, and was slightly envious. Fancy having a cinema on the doorstep like that!

  ‘We’re coming to Erdington village green now,’ Sean said. ‘Martha tells me most days she goes no further than this, for it has all the shops she needs. And, of course, these days you have to register with a shopkeeper to get your rations.’

  ‘Of course,’ Maria said, though the idea of rationing was an alien one to her. She looked with interest at the shops surrounding the grassed lawn ahead of them. It had obviously once had a fence around it, but all that were left were metal stumps in the ground.