by Anne Bennett
‘Hasn’t she already been christened?’ Barney said in surprise. Most Catholic children were christened when they were days, not months old.
‘I wouldn’t let her be until you came home,’ Maria said. ‘I had to fight the priest about it.’
‘I bet,’ Barney said. ‘But what is the rush now? Sam will hardly care or even be aware of it.’
‘He won’t be fit to go to the church, I know that,’ Maria said. ‘But he has mentioned it. He wants the baby to wear the christening gown and bonnet that I wore, and my mother, and my grandmother, way down the generations. Also, he wants to see Con as her godfather. He asks for so little in life, Barney, and always has. This might be the last thing we do for him.’
Barney knew Maria spoke the truth. He thought a great deal of Sam and would like to please him in this one thing. ‘It’d better be done quickly then,’ he said, for Sam was sinking fast. ‘Who have you in mind for godmother?’ he asked with a grin. ‘Con’s wife, Brenda?’
Maria shuddered. ‘No fear,’ she said. ‘I am going to ask Dora and Bella. Father Flaherty will understand about speed. He knows how ill Daddy is. He pops in to see him most days.’
The priest did understand and the christening took place two days later in the afternoon. Few knew about it, so the only people in the church were those involved, and Con’s wife, who sat in the pew and stared at them all malevolently, furious that she hadn’t been asked to be godmother. Maria thought it a shabby affair altogether, and not the sort of christening she had imagined, but she knew it had pleased her father, so it had achieved some purpose.
The baby, affronted that some strange man was tipping water over her head, let out wails that filled the church as she was christened Sarah Mary, though Maria knew she would be known as Sally, at least while she was young. She smiled as she remembered some old woman telling her once that newly christened babies needed to cry to release the devil inside them, which Maria had always thought nonsense.
Sally was handed to Dora, who held her against her shoulder and rocked her soothingly until the sobs turned to hiccuping sniffles and then stopped altogether. Maria’s eyes met those of Dora over the child’s head and they exchanged smiles. Maria knew without her and Bella’s help and unfailing support she’d never have coped as well as she had. If she lived to be a hundred, she’d never be able to repay the debt she owed them.
There was no party back at the house, for Sam was too ill for such a thing, but Maria had prepared food and provided beer and whiskey for the men, and sherry for any of the women that wanted it. Barney and Con sat by Sam’s side, drinking with him and talking together. Con even got Sam to eat a little food. Maria found it was hard to talk to Bella and Dora as she might have liked with Brenda sitting there, so conversation between them was stiff. Brenda, still angry with Maria, was barely polite anyway.
Maria was glad to draw the small gathering to a close when she saw Sam slumping back tiredly against the pillows.
‘Not much of a christening, this,’ Barney said to Con. He glanced at his watch. ‘The pubs will just about be open now. Fancy sinking a few at Raffety’s before we call it a day?’
Con looked towards his wife. Maria wondered what Con had ever seen in her. Brenda’s mouth, as usual, was like a thin slash of disapproval, her cheeks pinched in, as if she’d sucked a lemon. Her eyes were glittering with malice, especially when she cast them in Maria’s direction.
‘You’re going nowhere but home,’ she snapped to Con. ‘Get your coat.’
Con made a move as if to obey his wife and then stopped. He turned to Brenda and said, ‘The only place I am going is Raffety’s for another few beers, and you can like it or lump it.’
Brenda face was almost puce-coloured with temper. ‘You’ll come home now,’ she said through gritted teeth, ‘or the door will be locked and barred against you.’
Con smiled and said, ‘Thank you, Brenda, for informing me of that. I shan’t bother my head coming home at all then if I won’t be able to get in. I’m sure someone will put me up for the night when I am ready to leave.’
Maria had the desire to cheer to see Con at last sticking up for himself, for Brenda had made his life hell for years.
After the christening, Sam seemed to go steadily downhill and Maria suggested letting Sean know how bad Sam was.
Barney nodded. ‘I wouldn’t leave it any longer. After all, he might not be able to come straight away.’ He paused, then went on, ‘I know it’s not maybe the best time for visitors right now, but there is a fellow will be arriving today, name of Ned Richards. He wants to look over the boatyard.’
‘Look over the boatyard!’ Maria repeated incredulously. ‘Why in God’s name would anyone want to look over that boatyard? Few are fishing now, and Colm only keeps body and soul together with the work he picks up from the fishing boats going out from Lough Swilly. You know that as well as me. To be honest, I saw it as a millstone around our neck and never thought to get a penny piece for it.’
‘Aye, so did I,’ Barney said. ‘Ned is Seamus’s landlord and Seamus got talking to him one day and mentioned the boatyard and he said he might be interested.’
‘But what for?’
‘Listen, the man is rolling in dosh and has his finger in many pies. He owns houses all over Dublin and now he want to invest in what he calls the leisure industry.’
‘What’s that?’
‘How people spend their free time,’ Barney said. ‘Ned says the working man will be demanding more of this now that the war is over. Maybe not straight away, but certainly soon, and he thought of maybe giving people trips around the bay first, all the time encouraging those wealthy folk who have their own boats—he knows a fair few already—to bring them in for repair and maintenance, and a safe dock for the winter. He says it will be a growing industry, but he obviously wants to look at it. We arranged it before I left. You don’t mind, do you?’
Much as Maria wanted rid of the boatyard she had no real desire to meet anyone from those dark days that Barney had spent in Dublin.
‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘he’s some kind of crook.’
‘No,’ Barney said. ‘He’s straight as a die, Ned is. Seamus got to know him first as his landlord and then it seems they use the same casino and met up there.’
‘Are you sure about this man?’ Maria said. ‘I want no untrustworthy criminal getting their hands on my father’s boatyard.’
‘I tell you, he is all right and genuine,’ Barney said. ‘You’ll like him.’
Maria decided she would give the man the benefit of the doubt. If he liked the boatyard and was actually was prepared to pay money for it, it would be legitimate money, money she would feel justified in spending, she thought.
‘What about the fishermen?’
‘What about them?’
‘Well, I feel so sorry for them,’ Maria said. ‘They just hang about in the street. Every time I see Con his shoulders seem to sag further. He’s been to Derry many times seeking work like most of them have, but they got not a sniff of a job. The situation in Derry is desperate, so people say.’
‘If this takes off as Ned hopes,’ Barney replied, ‘he might be able to find employment for some of the men. I mean, he can’t promise or anything, but even a glimmer of hope is better than what they have now.’
It was, and Maria looked forward to meeting this man. She was pleasantly surprised by Ned Richards when he arrived. He was smart and well spoken. When she took his overcoat to hang it up, she saw that under it he wore a pin-striped suit with a pristine white shirt and the tie matching the handkerchief in the jacket top pocket. Even his black shoes gleamed. Everything about him said this was a well-set-up man with money.
He oozed charm too. He kissed Maria’s hand and claimed he’d seen few women as beautiful. She shook her head at him in exasperation, but, that flirtatious behaviour apart, she warmed to him for the kindness with which he spoke to Sam, and especially for the way he was with Sally.
Since his return, Bar
ney had taken no more notice of the baby than he had that first evening home. He seemed to resent Maria doing anything for her, and when she breastfed, it really upset and offended him. If Sally cried while they made love, as she had the previous night, he wouldn’t let Maria see to her until he was finished and satisfied. She couldn’t enjoy sex under those conditions and Barney’s reaction to the child worried her.
Ned lifted Sally from Maria’s arms, which Barney had never done, and declared she was one of the bonniest babies he’d ever seen.
‘Have you a family yourself, Mr Richards?’ Maria asked.
‘Ned’s the name,’ the man said. ‘And I have no family and no wife either, but now I see what Barney has here, I envy the man.’
He said things in a similar vein as the men shared a few pints after Ned’s survey of the boatyard, which he declared himself well pleased with.
‘Why you spent so long in Dublin when you had that luscious creature waiting for you at home beats me,’ he said as he sipped at his pint. ‘You have a wife and child to provide for and you should look to that.’
Barney didn’t like the man telling him what to do. He was here to look at a boatyard, for heaven’s sake, not issue a lecture. ‘When it’s all over, with Sam and all, we’ll be moving to Dublin,’ he said. ‘My brother—’
‘That’s one avenue that will be closed anyway,’ Ned said.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Look,’ Ned told him, ‘when I let the house to your brother, he had references and credentials I know now were probably false. He told me he was a businessman and I had no reason to disbelieve him. I would not have let my house knowingly to a pack of hoodlums and I’ll tell you that I was bloody annoyed with your brother hoodwinking me like that.
‘The Garda didn’t see it that way, of course. The fact that a known criminal gang was operating out of a house I own convinced them that I was involved in some way, possibly masterminding the whole thing or something. I’ll tell you, I went through some gruelling hours of questioning before my solicitor was able to convince them that I was totally innocent.
‘However, the line of questioning meant I got to know what they thought I had been involved in. I can tell you, Barney, you are one lucky sod. The very day you set off for here to see your father-in-law, your brother and the ruffians he hangs around with were picked up.’
Barney’s jaw dropped open. ‘Picked up? You mean…?’
‘I mean,’ Ned went on, ‘I should imagine about the time you were being welcomed into the bosom of your family, the whole lot of them were lifted.’
‘Ah, Jesus Christ!’ Barney said. ‘They could come for me too.’
‘Only if someone says you were part of anything illegal,’ Ned said. ‘I think if they had wind of you they would have been here before this. Now I have seen the set-up you have here, my advice to you—and you can take it or not—is to keep your head down for now and look for legitimate ways to keep your family. And you can bristle all you like,’ Ned added, seeing Barney’s reaction to his words, ‘but think on this. All of the gang are looking at hefty prison sentences so the papers say. The Garda apparently have been seeking them for some time. They say they nearly half killed one of the security guards. The man will never be the same again.’
Barney was silent. He knew Ned was right about the violence, which had sickened him at first.
‘The pickings might be better here,’ Seamus had said, ‘but so is the security. I mean, they are hardly going to open the doors of wherever, if we ask them nicely, and wave us on our way after.’
‘I know, but—’
‘There isn’t a but in this, brother,’ Seamus had said fiercely. ‘You are either with us or against us. Your choice, but if you’re in, you abide by the rules and accept that these guards sometimes have to be put out of action for a while. You’re not being asked to do it, for God’s sake, so what are you bloody worried about?’
‘Plenty,’ Barney might have said, but he didn’t. He could sense Seamus’s impatience and Seamus, angered, was frightening.
Ned, seeing Barney’s preoccupation, added, ‘You have more to lose than any of those lifted. As far as I am aware, none is married, let alone are family men.’
‘No, they’re not.’
‘Well, then,’ Ned said. ‘Does that pretty little wife of yours know all this?’
‘She can’t be sure what I was doing in Dublin, though she will have a good idea, because I went there when things got too hot for me here.’
‘And I could bet she wouldn’t approve?’
‘Huh, you can say that again.’
‘I’d say she wouldn’t approve either of some of the trollops you’ve been hanging around with. I’ve seen them draped all over you, when just a few miles away you had a prize like your wife waiting for you. Man, you want your head examined. Cut your losses. Get out while you can and keep well away from Dublin just at the moment.’
‘Not got much choice,’ Barney said morosely. ‘Anyway, I can go nowhere while Sam is so sick. Maria’s uncle from England will be arriving the day after tomorrow. I’d better put Maria in the picture about Seamus and all before she reads it in the paper, or someone thinks it is the nation’s interest for her to be told.’
‘I think,’ said Ned, ‘that would be very wise.’
Ned stayed overnight and the next day, about midmorning, Maria and Barney left him up at the bus in The Square, Maria pushing Sally in the pram. After the bus pulled out, Maria turned for home.
‘Not just yet,’ Barney said. ‘I have something to tell you.’
‘It’s cold, Barney.’
‘This is just for your ears. Do you want to hear it or don’t you?’
Maria didn’t know if she did, but she knew she needed to be told and so she turned the pram towards the green. The day was overcast, the sky gun-metal grey. A fresh wind was threatening to pull the scarf from her head and she hoped Barney wouldn’t take too long over what he had to say.
After a while, though, she didn’t even feel the cold, burning up as she was in humiliation. She listened openmouthed to the words her husband was speaking. They were alien words—about theft and arrest and court and imprisonment. Her mouth was dry and a hard lump had seemed to lodge in her chest as she eventually said, ‘Let me get this straight: your brother and his cronies were picked up at a job they were on the night you arrived home?’
‘Aye.’
‘And if you had delayed your arrival here for one day, you’d have been in on it too, and you would by now be in a prison cell? Did it never occur to you that this very thing was almost inevitable?’ Maria raged.
‘You don’t think like that.’
‘Well, I bet Seamus and his cronies wish they had thought like that and also thought up some legal way to earn cash.’ She stopped to think for a minute, then said, ‘If you were in on the other jobs, what if they tell on you? The guards could be coming for you this very minute.’
‘They could,’ Barney agreed. ‘But Ned said they would have probably have lifted me by now if they were going to.’
‘Is Ned involved as well?’
‘No, I told you, Ned’s clean as a whistle,’ Barney assured her.
‘So, Barney, where do we go from here?’ Maria said. ‘I’ll tell you now, I will not stay married to a petty crook. When Daddy dies I would rather take Sally and strike out on my own than live a life like that.’
Shock at the realisation of what would happen to his brother and the others had just begun to eat at Barney. At that moment he didn’t know what he was going to do. But Maria was his wife. It was her duty to stand by her man, not to run away at the first hurdle, and he told her as much as they turned for home.
‘Don’t lecture me about my duty,’ Maria said hotly. ‘You have no right on God’s earth to tell me how to live my life, or that of your child that you have barely cast your eyes on.’
‘Don’t start on about that as well as everything else,’ Barney snarled, losing patience. ‘I tol
d you I’m no good with babies. Lots of men aren’t. I suppose I will like her well enough when she is older and I can do more with her.’
‘I wouldn’t take a bet on it,’ Maria snapped. ‘There is only one person you care about and that is Barney McPhearson. Have you a plan in your little head as to how we are going to live, because the savings I had are almost gone?’
‘I have money, plenty of it.’
‘I want no part in that money, Barney.’
‘There are no jobs to be had around here. You only have to look at the crowds of unemployed to see that,’ Barney said. ‘You said yourself, Derry is worse.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t know, never having put your big toe in it to find out,’ Maria said. ‘I could probably get a job at the factory where I worked, but then who would care for Sally, your child that you have never held in your arms, never mind looked after?’
‘Look, Maria, nothing can be decided until Sam…well, you know.’
‘I know that,’ Maria said. ‘I just want you to have some plan of action, because fresh air isn’t very filling.’
‘What can I do about it if there are no jobs?’ Barney demanded. ‘And you won’t touch any money I have.’
‘Well,’ Maria said, ‘you must do as you please, but if you want us to stay together, then I suggest you find out about the Public Assistance Board that plenty are claiming money from.’
Barney had no intention of doing that. Those places asked the kind of questions he wouldn’t be a bit keen on answering. His details just could attract the attention of the authorities and then the Garda, who might feel it was in the public’s interest to take him back to Dublin for interrogation. Keeping his head down, as Ned had advised, meant just that. He was filling in no official forms. When Maria’s money was all gone, she would have to start on his, or starve to death.
‘There is no point going to places like that,’ he said. ‘I’d be given little more than a pittance, and risk alerting anyone interested in my whereabouts that I’m here.’
