Mother’s Only Child

by Anne Bennett

‘No,’ Maria said. ‘I know where he isn’t, but I haven’t a clue where he is, only that wherever it is, they are likely playing poker, for that is usually the one thing that keeps him out all night.’

  Maria was frightened of giving birth, frightened of the pain, frightened of making a holy show of herself over something most woman went through, and she was glad to see the competent and experienced Grace. She tied a towel to the bed rails and told Maria to pull on it when the pain got bad and Maria was glad of it as the hours ticked by. She made not a sound, but the spasms caused her to writhe in the bed and the agony was etched on her face.

  In the end, Maria began to think that there was something wrong for the pain just seemed to be almost constant, with little space between one spiral of pain and the next.

  ‘Does it always go on so long?’ she gasped out at last.

  ‘Bless you,’ Grace said. ‘It’s been no time yet, especially for the first. And when it’s over and the child is laid in your arms, why then, you’ll forget all this.’

  Maria doubted that and it was hardly reassuring that it would be some time yet before the child would be born. In fact, Barney might be home before she gave birth. She gave a long, low moan as another pain gripped her and her hand tightened around Bella’s so much she scored the older woman’s palm, but Bella gave no sign of this and instead, with her free hand, wiped Maria’s glistening face with the damp piece of cloth she had ready.

  Barney wasn’t home by six the next morning when Maria suddenly said to Grace, who’d sat in the rocking chair placidly knitting, ‘I need the toilet.’

  Swiftly, Grace got to her feet and pulled the bedclothes back.

  ‘I need the toilet,’ Maria said again.

  ‘No, you don’t, cutie dear, that’s the baby,’ Grace said. ‘And I am just going to have a look and see what’s what…All right,’ she said a few moments later. ‘Now it is time for you to do some work and I want you to push through the next contraction.’

  That, Maria felt, was the beginning of hell. Both women urged her to push when she hardly had the strength to do so and longed to rest. The pain was exhausting her.

  ‘Let me be,’ she pleaded.

  But neither woman would let her rest and kept urging her to push again and again. Surely the baby’s head was too big, she thought, and she wanted to ask them this, but hadn’t the breath to do so. Jesus Christ, it felt like she was trying to give birth to a red-hot cannon ball.

  Suddenly there was one enormous contraction and nothing on God’s earth could have stopped Maria’s scream as she feared her body was being rent in two. She almost crushed the bones in Bella’s hand as she pushed with all her might. She felt the child slither from her and immediately newborn wails filled the room and Maria gave a sigh of relief.

  ‘It’s a wee daughter you have,’ Grace said with a smile. ‘And she is quite perfect, and with a good pair of lungs too.’ She handed the baby to Maria.

  Maria was unprepared for the almost overwhelming love she felt for that child as she gazed down at her. It was so powerful; she knew that she would go through any trial imaginable to keep this wee mite safe. Her breasts ached and she opened the front of her nightdress and let the baby’s small, protesting mouth fasten around the nipple. Bella let tears of joy slide unchecked down her cheeks at the sight.

  Maria wondered what Barney would make of the child and if he would be disappointed that Maria hadn’t yet given him a son. That was when he arrived home, of course, and she felt a niggle of worry begin to eat at her. It was going on for seven o’clock and he had never been so late home before.

  As if she could read her thoughts, Grace suddenly said, ‘Where is the child’s father?’ She’d thought it odd before this that he wasn’t there, pacing the floor below and smoking one cigarette after another, but surely the man should be here now, praising his wife and taking joy in the child that they had produced together?

  She was totally unprepared for the reaction her question caused. Maria didn’t answer at all, only lowered her head, but not before Grace caught her face flushed with embarrassment. When her eyebrows raised in a silent query to Bella, she didn’t answer either, but shook her head vehemently.

  Sam had been woken by the scream, but hadn’t been aware what it was that had woken him and he’d wondered to see the lights on, and a large pan of something boiling on the stove, but no sign of Maria. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of a newborn child and guessed what had happened while he’d slept. He called out.

  ‘Rest yourself,’ Bella said, glad of an excuse to leave the room and the unnerving silence that Grace’s question had evoked. ‘I’ll see to him.’

  She went out of the room with the soiled linen to put in to soak and Grace, after making Maria comfortable, followed her, saying as she did so, ‘I’ll be back in a minute or two with something to eat. You have done a hard night’s work and now you must feed yourself well.’

  ‘I’ll be glad of it,’ Maria said, for, now she had time to think about it, she was starving.

  Downstairs, Bella had told Sam he was a grandfather and that Maria had given birth to a wee daughter.

  ‘Is she all right?’ he asked huskily. ‘Are they both all right?’

  ‘They are both grand,’ Bella said. ‘And now, will you have a cup of tea?’

  Sam wrinkled his nose. ‘Not tea. I am a grandfather and that calls for a celebration. Can you get me a wee tot of whiskey?’

  ‘Not at this hour in the morning I can’t,’ Bella said firmly.

  ‘Where’s Barney?’ Sam said, knowing he could always wheedle a drink out of his son-in-law.

  ‘Ah well, now, that’s a question we would all like an answer to,’ Bella told Sam, just as Grace stepped into the room. ‘For your sainted son-in-law did not come home last night, so you’ll have to make do with tea this morning.’

  ‘Not come home,’ Grace asked in an undertone as Bella busied herself at the range. ‘But where is he?’

  ‘Maria doesn’t know,’ Bella said. ‘But the man is a gambler and he enjoys a game of poker. When he left last night he said he might not be home till the early hours, but this is hardly the early hours.’

  ‘No, indeed,’ Grace said. ‘Should anyone be informed? Maybe the man’s had an accident.’

  ‘It’s a bit early to start to fret yet,’ Bella said. ‘Besides which, I can’t think of many occasions when Barney would welcome the attentions of the guards, even to ensure his safety.’

  ‘Oh, like that is it?’

  ‘Aye, just like that,’ Bella said. ‘I’d be obliged if you’d keep it to yourself, for Maria’s sake.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Grace said. ‘It seems to me Maria has her hands full enough without becoming the subject of gossip and speculation as well.’

  ‘Thank you, Grace,’ Bella said, knowing the woman to be trustworthy. ‘I’m grateful and I know Maria will be. We don’t know that Barney will not come through that door, and before too long either, hale and hearty and wondering what all the fuss is about.’

  ‘Aye, Grace agreed, ‘and it isn’t as if he knew about the baby.’

  ‘No, the child wasn’t due for nearly a fortnight yet.’ Bella said.

  With everything done, Grace returned home. Maria said she was tired out and would value a wee sleep, and Bella laid the sleeping child in the waiting cradle and went home herself to have a short nap, for she too was fair jiggered.

  Morning turned into evening and still there was no sign of Barney. No one in the village was told of Maria’s confinement either, because they would all understandably wonder where the father was and Maria, concerned though she was, didn’t want anyone to alert the authorities yet awhile.

  Another night passed and Maria was worried enough to send for Con, knowing the man to be reliable, dependable and one without a loose tongue. He admired the child while listening to Maria’s concerns.

  ‘What do you imagine has happened to him, Maria?’

  ‘I don’t know, that’s the thing,’ Mari
a said. ‘But Barney told me that when they play poker, Seamus has a special pack, you know. I mean, what if the other players tumbled to what he was doing, beat the two of them up and left them in a ditch somewhere?’

  Con thought it only too likely, but he didn’t say so. ‘And you are sure that is where he was that night—playing poker? He told you that?’

  ‘Not in so many words,’ Maria said. ‘But that was what he was always doing when he was out till the early hours.’

  ‘Well,’ said Con, ‘I think we should check out the hospitals. I’ll do that, if you like.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I’ll be glad to do it,’ Con said. ‘As long as you could see your way clear to helping me out with the bus fares. Brenda gets proper mad with me under her feet all day, anyway.’

  ‘Of course,’ Maria said. ‘But go and see Seamus first, before you travel the length and breadth of the country. It might save you a journey.’

  However, there was no sign of Seamus in the little shanty that had served as a home for the McPhearsons, though one of the neighbours said he’d heard tell he was off to Dublin.

  ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish, as far as I’m concerned,’ he’d added.

  But this didn’t help Con in his search for Barney so he set off for the bus.

  Some hours later, Con was able to tell Maria that Barney’s brother had all but disappeared too, but there was no sign of either man in the hospitals in either Letterkenny, or Derry.

  ‘Do you think Barney and his brother could have just upped sticks and gone to Dublin together?’ he said.

  ‘Not without sending word,’ Maria said. ‘That’s the tale I’ll put about, though, until I hear differently: that directly the child was born, Barney and his brother had to go and do some job in Dublin.’

  ‘Won’t Sam think it odd?’ Con said. ‘I mean, he’ll know that isn’t the truth.’

  ‘Daddy’s out of it most of the time now,’ Maria said. ‘And if I feed him the same tale as everyone else, he’ll likely believe it and probably won’t even remember that Barney wasn’t here for the birth.’

  Con knew that Maria spoke the truth. Sometimes Sam looked at him strangely as if he couldn’t quite place who he was.

  ‘You don’t think you should inform the police?’

  Maria faced Con squarely. ‘Maybe I should,’ she said. ‘It really is what any reasonable person would do. If I haven’t hear anything in a week, I will inform the authorities, I promise.’

  ‘Well, I will support you in any decision you make, or any story you tell,’ Con said. ‘But now I must away home and, God knows, I’ve been so long away, I don’t know if I shouldn’t throw my cap in first.’

  ‘Aye, you go on home, Con,’ Maria said. ‘You’ve done more than enough for one day and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your help.’

  An atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki that same day. Dora came over to tell Maria, but by then she was so concerned about Barney, it didn’t affect her as news of the first one had.

  ‘Where the hell could he be, Bella?’

  Bella had no idea, but her suspicions of Barney had resurfaced. ‘I can’t imagine where he is, or why he hasn’t got in touch,’ Bella said. ‘And it’s no wonder you are worried. It’s dreadful not knowing. Even bad news is better than no news.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if it will ever be explained to me, if I will ever see Barney again,’ Maria said. ‘People disappear all the time—you know they do—and are never seen or heard of again. I look at the baby and wonder if she will ever see her father.’

  Later Bella said to her mother, ‘God, I could kill Barney for putting Maria through this. She doesn’t deserve it.’

  ‘You don’t believe anything sinister has happened to him then?’

  Bella gave a hoot of derision. ‘Not him,’ she said. ‘Bad things only seem to happen to good people. Christ Almighty, I bet if that man fell into a dung heap, he’d come up smelling of roses.’

  Her mother chuckled at the mental picture. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ she said.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Moville was such a small village that any stranger was spotted and speculated about almost before he had set foot inside it. So the news that a little dapper man, sporting a neat moustache and wearing a suit and a trilby hat, was seen knocking on Maria’s door was soon known by everyone.

  Of course there had been much head shaking already about the child. All the neighbours had been in to see the baby, many bearing gifts, and all had asked about Barney. They had got the same message: Barney had gone to Dublin with his brother to take up some job for a few weeks as there was nothing doing nearer at hand. No one believed it.

  ‘A man wouldn’t go hightailing it to Dublin when his wife had just given birth,’ one said to another. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Anyway,’ another commented, ‘since when have the McPhearsons been that keen on work of any description?’

  ‘You’re right there. Jesus, neither of them would cross the street to do a job, never mind travelling all the way to Dublin.’

  The priest thought it odd too. He called when the child was five days old to discuss the christening.

  ‘I can’t think about anything like that until her father is back home,’ Maria told him.

  ‘When is that?’ the priest asked. ‘These things have to be attended to.’

  ‘I don’t know, Father,’ Maria admitted. ‘When I know anything definite, you will be the first to be told.’

  When Father Flaherty had taken his leave, Dora said, ‘How long are you going to leave it before telling the authorities that Barney is missing?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Maria said. ‘I am worried to death about him. What if something bad has happened to him and my delay in telling the police has made things worse? On the other hand, Dora, you know Barney as well as I do. He could be mixed up in something not quite within the law.’

  ‘I know one thing,’ Dora said. ‘You’ll be the one in trouble if you are not careful.’

  ‘I know,’ Maria said with a sigh. ‘If only there was some word.’

  ‘Surely if he intended sending word, he would have done so by now.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Maria said. ‘And I know I am not helping myself by shillyshallying. Send for the guards tomorrow and I’ll let them deal with it.’

  ‘What about your father?’

  ‘What about him? I’ll get up tomorrow and explain what I intend to do. And don’t look at me like that, Dora, I know I’m not out of my lying-in period, but I refuse to speak to the police in my bedroom and dressed in my nightdress. The priest was bad enough.’

  ‘All right,’ Dora said. ‘I do see the sense of that, but you take it steady.’

  The next morning Maria had just come down the stairs, the child in her arms, when there was a knock on the door. Dora’s eyes met those of Maria as the older woman went to open it. Few people knocked doors in the village, except those on official business and Maria felt for a chair with her free hand and sank into it. Her legs had begun to wobble and the roof of her mouth felt suddenly unaccountably dry.

  Fully expecting to find a Garda outside the door, Dora was surprised by the stranger. Though the man was respectably dressed, she noted his blue eyes were so hard it was like looking at two pieces of flint. His eyes were narrowed and there was a frown creasing his brow as he said, ‘I would like to speak with Mrs Maria McPhearson.’

  ‘And what is your business with her?’

  The man shook his head. He knew that this woman wasn’t the one he was told to speak to and he had his orders. ‘My business is with Mrs Maria McPhearson and it’s private, but you can tell her that it concerns her husband.’

  Dora opened the door wider and the man removed his hat before following her inside. He took a swift look around.

  Maria had heard what the man said and she stood up again, the child held tight against her shoulder as she said, ‘I am Maria McPhearson. You wish t
o speak to me about my husband, Barney?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘So,’ Maria demanded, ‘where is he?’

  The man whetted his lips and twisted the hat he held in his hand nervously. ‘I need to speak to you privately.’

  ‘Do you?’ Maria snapped. ‘Well, you will have to need. Dora is my very good friend and my father has a right to know too what has happened to his son-in-law, so state your business.’

  The man shrugged. ‘If that’s how you want it,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell you where Barney is, but that he is in a safe house in the hills of Donegal and he will write when he can. That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘What are you talking about, “safe house”?’ Maria said, confused. ‘What’s so unsafe about his own fireside?’

  ‘The guards could be after him,’ the man said. ‘They’ve already shot him in the arm.’

  Maria stared at the man incredulously. The guards just didn’t go around shooting people. ‘What happened? How did Barney come to get shot?’

  When the man shrugged, Maria shrieked at him, ‘God Almighty. Don’t you come to my door and say that my husband and father of our baby daughter has been shot and will write when he has time, and expect me to be satisfied with it. Tell me what he was about for him to get shot or, by Christ, I will shake the words out of you.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Dora grimly. ‘And I’ll help her.’

  The man hesitated. He’d been told to say as little as possible, but he saw the younger woman’s angry eyes nearly standing out in her white face and the older woman bristling with temper, and thought he wouldn’t put it past the two of them to attack him if he said nothing at all. So reluctantly he said. ‘We were intending holding up a security van taking money to a bank.’

  ‘What?’ Maria couldn’t believe that she was hearing right. This surely to God couldn’t be happening to her. ‘Have you…has Barney done this sort of thing before?’ she asked.

  Again, the man shrugged. He had already said too much. Not that he needed to say anything, for Maria knew with dread certainty that this wasn’t the first time that Barney had done this kind of thing and that was where he had got the wads of money from. She felt sick.