by Anne Bennett
Martha stood before the window, looking in. ‘When Mom used to bring me here when I was just a nipper, and even when I used to take Patsy before the war, this place would draw us like a magnet. The toys then—oh, they were wonderful: beautiful dolls of every size and shape; prams and cribs good enough to put a real baby in. There were train sets running around in the window, and inside the shop—not just going round and round, though, but winding through towns and villages and countryside. I could have stood for hours just looking. There were cars of every description and a large fort full of lead soldiers. Most of it was too expensive for my parents, though it was nice to see it all. But now…‘
Martha didn’t have to say any more. The shelves in the window were almost bare and Maria guessed there would be little in the shop to buy.
‘This must be one of the saddest sights,’ Maria said, ‘to have a toyshop without any toys.’
‘Aye,’ Martha said, ‘but I hope we can pick up some wee thing for Paul and Tony’s stockings at least. Their wartime Christmases have been pretty lean. The only time they had anything worthwhile was when we had a parcel from America, delivered through the Churches.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘Poor little beggars were that excited, you’d think they had been given the Crown Jewels.’
‘I’m sure we’ll get them something,’ Maria said. ‘We’ll make it our mission today.’
‘OK,’ Martha said. ‘We can take a look in Woolworths as we are passing. We might be able to get a necklace or bangle for Patsy, or some ribbons for her hair.’
They did better than that. As well as the ribbons, Martha seized on a brush and comb set. The plywood model shop Hobbies was next door. Here again Martha told Maria how it used to be before the war when the window was full of yachts, trains and cars, with row upon row of kits inside so that people could make up their own.
She peered through the window into the near-empty shop and turned away sadly. ‘Tony would have loved to have one,’ she said with a sigh. ‘But there is none to be had now. It won’t matter so much if Sean can get them a ball. He has put in for one at the Dunlop shop, but then so have a lot of people and there are only so many to go around. I’ve no idea how they decide these things.’
Maria felt sorry for the children, who would wake up on Christmas morning to no presents, as presumably they had all through the war. ‘There must be something,’ she said, pointing to the other side of the street where she could see a building behind the barrows. ‘What’s that place?’
‘That’s the Market Hall,’ Martha said. ‘It has no roof now, courtesy of the Luftwaffe.’
It was a sorry sight. Maria could guess it must have been a fine building before it was stripped of its roof and had holes pounded into its sides. Arched windows were set on either side of stone steps and the whole building was supported by Gothic pillars. And once inside, such an array of things for sale.
‘There used to be a magnificent wooden clock on the wall,’ Martha told Maria. Carved figures—three knights and a lady—were on it, and they would all strike the bell on the hour. Burnt to a crisp now, of course. I always worried what happened to the animals. There were two pet places and probably the animals perished in the fire.’
‘Oh, look,’ Maria said, suddenly pouncing upon a yo-yo and a penny whistle.
‘Dear Lord, they will have us deafened with that whistle,’ Martha chided her gently, but she was glad she had found something to put in the children’s stockings.
‘We can’t go home until you have a peep in the Rag Market,’ Maria declared, leading the way down the steps of the Market Hall, across the cobbled street past the church, with a fringe of trees in front of it and, dodging the trams and dray horses, into the another large hall, which smelt a little of fish.
It was an eye-opener for Maria. She spent a long time at the second-hand clothes stalls—so long, in fact, that Martha left her when she spotted a man selling wind-up mechanical toys from a tray around his neck and bought two of them before joining Maria again.
‘Look what I have!’ she exclaimed in delight, and then realised by Maria’s pensive face as she fingered a soft wool dress in dark red that she hadn’t even heard her speak. She nudged her. ‘Whatever are you thinking about so hard, Maria?’
‘I’m just thinking it’s a pity that I haven’t got a sewing machine,’ Maria said. ‘I could unpick some of these and make up something decent.’
‘Could you really?’
‘Aye, if only I had a sewing machine.’
‘I might be able to help you there,’ Maria said. ‘The point is, Sean asked me if I wanted one for Christmas. Apparently, one of the men he worked with had bought the machine for his wife two years ago and she’s never used it and so he’s decided to sell it. I don’t know anything about sewing. I mean, I can sew a button, hem a dress and turn a collar, but you don’t need a machine for those types of jobs. Any other type of sewing is beyond me and so I told Sean it would be a waste of money buying it for me, but if it’s still available then it would do you a treat.’
‘Is it a treadle?’
‘No,’ Maria said, ‘Sean said it was a modern one that you worked by turning a handle with your hand.’
‘I’d love it,’ Maria said. ‘But there is no need for Sean to pay for it.’
‘Oh, we can sort that out later,’ Martha said dismissively ‘All I know is I would pay for it myself, and gladly, if you could make me up a decent dress and keep the kids respectable. We’ve been making do and mending for so long, the material is wearing out. Tony’s trousers are nearly indecent and his shirts are hard to fasten across his chest. For Patsy it’s even worse. She had developed quite a little bust on her. She hasn’t anything that isn’t too short or tight. Even her uniform is getting skimpy on her now and I bought that big to last.’
Maria had actually noticed the state of all the children’s clothes and she hoped the sewing machine was still available. So in a mood of optimism, the two women left the Rag Market with as many clothes as they could carry.
By the time they arrived home, with Sean and the boys following on their heels and Tony declaring, ‘They was robbed,’ there was no indication of how Patsy and Barney had spent their afternoon. The glasses had been washed and put away and Patsy had sucked a peppermint Barney had given her to get rid of the smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke on her breath. Then for good measure she cleaned her teeth.
As she was coming out of the bathroom, she heard Deirdre beginning to cry down stairs and so when her mother came in she was nursing her. ‘Oh God,’ Martha said, taking the baby from her daughter’s arms, ‘has she been like this since I left?’
‘No, she’s just woken up,’ Patsy said, adding, ‘Oh, listen, now the other one’s started.’
‘I’ll get her,’ Maria said, galloping up the stairs to her complaining child, leaving Martha to explain about the clothes and the lack of a sewing machine.
All the talk around the table was about that and Sean said he would go to the fellow’s house directly after the meal to see if it was still for sale.
Patsy was torn. Much as the thought of new clothes excited her, she didn’t want to feel beholden in any way to her step-cousin, particularly when she was engaging in a secret friendship with her husband. Just how good was she, anyway? What she turned out would probably be rubbish, which Patsy wouldn’t be seen dead in.
And what excitement there was when Sean carried the machine home. The dinner things had been washed and put away by then and the clothes tipped out on the table. Maria ran her hands over the lovely shiny machine, the nicest sewing machine she had ever owned, and her hands itched to use it while her insides churned with excitement. Even Patsy decided to give the women a hand unpicking the clothes while the two men took themselves off to the pub.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As she had been doing every Sunday since she had arrived, the next day Maria went with Martha and the children to the children’s Mass at nine o’clock at the abbey. Barney was still in bed after
declaring the night before he would be going to the one at eleven o’clock, and when Sean, who usually went to a much earlier Mass, said he’d go along with him, Maria guessed they wouldn’t be back until the pubs closed.
At half-past twelve Martha began to wonder what was keeping them, for the Mass was just an hour and the abbey a mere ten minutes’ walk away.
‘They’ll have gone for a pint,’ Maria said.
Martha frowned. Neither of them had had anything to eat or drink since the night before, as they intended to take Communion, and so Martha knew any beer they took would go straight to their heads. ‘I wanted dinner at one o’clock or thereabouts,’ she said. ‘It can’t be much later than that because Patsy has choir practice at three.’
‘Have the dinner when you want,’ Maria said. ‘Sometimes all Barney is fit for is sleeping off the beer when he does come home.’
‘Don’t you mind at all?’
‘I’ve given up minding things I can’t change,’ Maria said. ‘I could nag Barney till the cows come home and it would make not a ha’p’orth of difference. So what would it achieve? I would get upset and nothing would change. In fact, if I was to nag him, he’d probably act in a worse way.’
Martha shook her head sadly. ‘Can’t you talk to him, explain how you feel?’ she asked. ‘After all, marriage is a partnership.’
‘Your marriage is,’ Maria said. ‘I can see how happy and close you are. With me and Barney, it’s entirely different. Oh, don’t worry,’ she went on, seeing Martha’s concerned face, ‘I am well used to it now.’
She could have told Martha that the rot had begun in their marriage when Barney believed she had tricked him into it and hadn’t been pregnant at all, an idea she could guess had been implanted by Seamus. But that would have meant admitting to Martha how she gave herself freely to Barney before they were married and she’d hate Martha to think badly of her. And what if she were to tell Sean? How disappointed he would be in the niece he so loved.
So she said, ‘I came to the decision a long time ago that what can’t be cured must be endured. That is the only way I can deal with it. Don’t mention a word of this to Uncle Sean. He would feel he had to speak to Barney and that could only make things worse for me.’
Martha knew Maria was married to a totally selfish man, and so she said, ‘I have no desire in the world to worsen things for you, so don’t fret, Sean will not hear a word from me.’
Martha, Maria and the children ate the dinner at the normal time with Sean and Barney’s left on plates over pans of water to heat for them when they came in. Afterwards Patsy washed up and Tony dried so that Maria could get on with the dressmaking. Despite herself, Patsy was surprised and quite impressed at her step-cousin’s talent. She was making her a dress in a soft, dark red material and had measured her the previous night, then, using those measurements, had cut a pattern out of pages from the Birmingham Evening Mail. She had pinned the pattern to the material and carefully cut it out. Patsy could barely wait to see the finished article.
However, first she had the choir practice. She hadn’t gone very far from the house on her way to the abbey when she met Sean and Barney making their way home. She’d seen few people drunk, and never her stepfather, and at first she was slightly repelled. But she saw Barney was not the slightest bit ashamed of the state he was in. As he caught sight of her, he exclaimed, ‘Isn’t this a sight for sore eyes, Sean? Isn’t young Patsy here a true vision of loveliness? An angel from heaven, so she is.’
Sean could never remember feeling so drunk. The beer had reacted straight away on his empty stomach and he had no desire other than to reach home before he fell down and made a holy show of himself in the street, and no time at all for such talk with his stepdaughter.
‘Come away, man,’ he said, pulling at Barney’s arm.
Patsy’s face was bright red and she was flustered and embarrassed at the way Barney was carrying on. She had to remind herself this was Barney, her special friend. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I’m due at choir practice at the abbey.’
‘Would you mind if I walked along with you?’
‘No, but—’
‘We need to go home,’ Sean said. ‘Come on.’
‘You go,’ Barney said. ‘I’ll be along later. The walk will clear my head.’
‘Don’t be crazy,’ Sean said. ‘Martha will kill me as it is. As for Maria—’
‘Maria will say not a word about it,’ Barney said emphatically. ‘But you go on home and say I went for a wee walk.’
‘I need to go,’ Patsy said. ‘I’ll be late.’
‘Can’t have that, princess, now can we?’ Barney said, catching up her arm and tucking it into his. ‘Be seeing you, Sean.’
Sean stood in the road, watching them go, Barney weaving ever so slightly and Patsy helping him walk straight. He wondered if should have made a stronger stand about letting Barney go off like that. But then what could he have done without making a scene? By God, he wasn’t really in any fit state to argue the toss with anyone. He was a little concerned with the way Barney had spoken to Patsy, but he knew it was just his way. Patsy was little more than a child, and almost related. No harm would come to her with Barney. He pushed his concerns aside and went home to face Martha.
Patsy felt nothing like a child as she walked along arm in arm with Barney. ‘Do you like choir practice?’ he asked.
Patsy shrugged. ‘It’s all right.’
‘If you didn’t go one Sunday, what would happen?’
‘Nothing. What do you mean?’
‘If I took you somewhere more interesting,’ Barney said. ‘Like the cinema, say. No one would have to know. It would be our secret. How long is choir practice?’
Patsy thought of snuggling in the cinema beside Barney and it suddenly looked a far more attractive prospect that practising hour upon hour in a freezing cold church.
‘It depends on the time of year,’ she told him. ‘Now, of course, we are practising for Christmas and all, and we may go on for two hours. Usually it’s an hour and a half.’
‘Not enough time to visit the pictures, though.’
‘It might be,’ Patsy said, ‘because I don’t go home afterwards—well, not till later. I have tea at my friend Chloe’s house, and sometimes we do a bit of homework together.’
‘And wouldn’t this Chloë wonder if you didn’t turn up?’
‘Well, I’d have to tell her,’ Patsy said.
‘And what if she mentions it to her mother?’
‘She won’t,’ Patsy said confidently. ‘But I couldn’t miss choir before Christmas. I would be missed then because I have some solo parts.’
They had reached the church and Barney said, ‘Then it will be something to look forward to in the New Year.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Patsy said, and felt her insides tingling with delicious excitement. Greatly daring, she stood on tiptoe and kissed Barney on the cheek.
He fought the longing to crush her to him and kiss her properly. Plenty of time, he told himself, and he waved as Patsy ran up the path.
On Thursday morning a letter with a Dublin postmark, addressed to Barney, arrived after he’d left for work. Knowing it was probably from Ned, when he got home he took it to the bedroom to read, just as he was, unwashed. When he didn’t come down again, Maria crept upstairs to see what news that letter contained.
His head shot up as the door opened and Maria was shocked by his red-rimmed eyes. They were dry, but ravaged by pain. She approached the bed cautiously and said gently, ‘What is it, Barney?’
‘What is it, you ask?’ Barney said sneeringly. ‘I’ll tell you what it is. They have given my brother ten sodding years.’
Ten years! The words resounded in Maria’s head and she forgave Barney for the way he had spoken to her. He was hurting and lashing out, that was all, because if there was one person in the whole world Barney loved more than himself it was Seamus, a fact that she had realised long ago.
This news must have knocked him for six.
Dear Christ, it had shocked her to the core. Ten years! She never imagined such a sentence, and she suddenly went cold. She’d read reports of other trials and often the defendant would ask for a number of similar cases to be taken into consideration. She wondered if Seamus had done that, how many he had cited and whether that had decided the hefty prison term. She broached this question to Barney and he growled that of course he’d done that—they’d all done a variety of previous jobs.
‘But it wasn’t that alone,’ he said. ‘It was the violence used, so Ned says.’
Maria’s eyes opened in disbelief. ‘Violence!’
‘Don’t look so bloody shocked, woman. We were stealing, weren’t we?’ Barney yelled. ‘What do you think they were going to do, these people set to guard the stuff, stand at the door and hand it out? They had to be put out of action. I never had a hand in it so don’t look at me like that. Maybe I should have done, because the man that dealt with most of the security men, P.J., seemed to take pleasure in laying them out and often went too far.’
‘I can’t believe that you are talking so calmly about this.’
‘But you never did understand it, did you, Maria?’ Barney said. Then, wanting to wound someone as he had been wounded, he added, ‘I tell you, there were many women, even girls, in Dublin more appreciative of me and the money I had to splash about than you.’
‘What do you mean?’ Maria asked, though she knew full well what Barney meant and she was angry, suddenly furiously, blisteringly angry. But she was living in her uncle’s house, and this was between her and Barney alone, so she hissed her heated reply in a whisper. ‘Well, I suggest you go back to them. If you have slept with whores and prostitutes, you’ll not get near me in bed again.’
