Mother’s Only Child

by Anne Bennett

  ‘I wouldn’t have cared if he had,’ she said, ‘except for the way it would rebound on him, of course. I would have said the person who did it had done us, the whole God damned world, a favour, and the only pity is that Uncle Sean has been picked up for it.’

  Patsy and Andrew had told the boys together, but neither wanted to share that news with the younger children and decided to leave things as they were for the moment. Martha just told them that Sean had had to go away for a few days to do a special job for Dunlop’s.

  ‘Without even saying goodbye?’ Deirdre asked, incredulously.

  ‘He was in a rush,’ Martha said.

  Deirdre looked at he mother’s white face. It looked sort of sad, and her eyes were swollen to mere slits. ‘You’ve been crying,’ she said accusingly. ‘Why you been crying? Are you mad with Daddy for going away?’

  Martha was holding herself together with difficulty. ‘I haven’t been crying.’ she told her young daughter. ‘I have a bit of a cold.’

  ‘No you haven’t.’ Deirdre stated flatly. ‘You’ve been crying.’

  ‘Oh, stop this, Deirdre,’ Martha snapped. ‘I have a cold and that is the end of it.’

  Deirdre was quiet. She was hurt and confused by her mother’s reaction, and even more certain she was being fobbed off and not being told the whole truth. But she also know she would get nothing out of her mother just then and she decided she would bide her time.

  Martha and Patsy found it very hard trying to stay even moderately cheerful in front of the younger children when they felt so burdened with sadness. That night, when they heard the church bells peal out the old year and ring in the new, and the sounds of revelry in the adjoining houses and even the streets, it was like a mockery to those locked in misery in the house.

  But it did show them that life would go on all around them. Martha knew that, now the papers had got hold of the story, it would be common knowledge very soon. They’d even had reporters come to the house that day asking questions and she’d seen photographers lingering around the gate. She realised she wouldn’t be able to shield the children much longer. Deirdre, Sally and Theresa, at least, would have to be told a modicum of the truth before all the sordid details were thrown at them across the playground when they were well enough to return to school.

  On Sunday morning Martha was upset to be shunned at Mass by people whom she counted as friends, and it didn’t really help that Father Clancy sought her out afterwards and asked if the Church could do anything to help her. There was nothing anyone could do and that was the very devil of it. Martha knew many would believe there was no smoke without fire and she hoped fervently that the people on the jury, who would decide Sean’s fate, were more open-minded.

  Even the boys were suffering. Martha knew. She had seen tear trails on Paul’s cheeks and the boy often looked incredibly sad. Tony had lost his impudence and ready smile, and often seemed far away from them all, as if he was sunken inside himself. He had admitted to Paul that some of the other lads and men had been giving him a hard time at work about his stepfather’s arrest, but warned him not to tell their mother.

  ‘She can’t really do anything about it and, anyroad, she has enough on her plate without worrying about me,’ he said.

  Paul, who had clearly seen the burden that his mother carried, couldn’t have agreed more. He thought he would probably be subjected to some of the same when school opened on the seventh of January and he too would keep quiet about it in front of his mother.

  Martha often wondered what they would have done without Andrew. He had made all the enquiries and dealings with the solicitor he’d engaged to represent Sean, and began to make the arrangements for Barney’s funeral, when his body should be released, which was taking a little time as there’d have to be a post mortem. He’d even contacted Mountjoy Prison, so that Seamus could be informed of his brother’s death, and was always willing to step in and throw together a quick lunch or wash the pots.

  Sally and Theresa were not fit enough to go back to school when it reopened after the holidays and Martha had no intention of sending Deirdre on her own. Anyway, she wasn’t right yet and still had no recollection of that night, though Martha and even Patsy had quizzed her about it on more than one occasion. Patsy, intrigued by the whole thing, had even gone up to see Mrs Bellingham on Tuesday, two days before the schools were due to reopened. But there was no response to her knock and the lady next door said she hadn’t returned yet.

  Deirdre herself would have liked to have gone back to school, because being at home left her too much time to think, probing and poking that black hole in her life as if it were a loose tooth.

  When Paul came home from school that first afternoon with a black eye, a nose that had definitely been bleeding and the mark of the cane across both hands, Martha knew he had been fighting. Though he said he didn’t want to talk about it, she didn’t have to be a genius to work out what it was over.

  ‘I must tell the children tonight,’ she said to Patsy as they washed the dishes together. ‘The more I put it off, the worse it is.’

  ‘Do you want me to come in with you?’

  ‘Would you?’ Martha said gratefully. ‘You’re not seeing Andrew?’

  ‘Not tonight,’ Patsy said. ‘He has a staff meeting, and when it’s over, the usual pattern is to carry it on in the pub, so tonight I am all yours.’

  So, a little later, with Jack and Martin settled, Paul at his homework and Tony also in his room, knowing what was afoot and wanting to be out of the way, Martha told Deirdre she wanted to see her and would she come into the room that Sally and Theresa shared with their mother as it had a fire lit in there.

  Deirdre knew that this was it. Her mother was now going to tell her the truth, clarify what it was that was making her so touchy and bad-tempered, and maybe also tell them what manner of place her father was in that he hadn’t sent them a letter yet. Sally and Theresa were almost fully recovered. Maria, though, still looked very pale and also had a hacking cough that shook her whole frame.

  ‘Sit down, Deirdre,’ Martha said. ‘This won’t take long.’

  There was only one chair in the room, which Martha took, and so Deirdre climbed on to the edge of the bed that already housed Sally and Theresa, and Patsy perched on Maria’s. They waited.

  For days, Martha had rehearsed this, wondering if there was any way that she could soften this blow. But she couldn’t think of one and she decided now to pitch straight in and cope with the fallout later. She gave a nervous cough and she saw Patsy’s sympathetic eyes on her as she said, ‘You know I told you Sean was away working?’ She looked straight at Deirdre, who nodded. ‘Well,’ Martha went on, ‘that was a little lie, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Deirdre said, almost triumphantly. ‘I knew you weren’t telling us the truth. Where is he really then?’

  She was totally unprepared for the answer, or for the sadness in Martha’s face or the break in her voice as she said, ‘Your father, Deirdre is…he…he is in prison.’

  Deirdre jerked as if she has been shot. She stared at her mother for a moment, her mouth agape. She noted her mother’s distress, her eyes glistening with tears, and the shocked faces of Sally and Theresa. Then her eyes found Patsy’s. Patsy knew Deirdre would be hurt and confused. They were the only ones to know how hard they had tried to save Sean from this dreadful fate.

  Deirdre thought her mother must have made a mistake. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ she shouted. ‘This isn’t true. It can’t be true. What would anyone put Dad in prison for?’

  Martha went over to the bed and sat beside her daughter, her arm around her and went on, ‘Maria’s husband, Barney, is dead. He has been murdered by someone and they think that someone is your daddy.’

  Deirdre again stared at Patsy, her eyes wild. Was it all for nothing, that secrecy?

  While she was coming to terms with this, Sally turned to her mother and asked. ‘Is this true?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Maria said. ‘Your daddy
is dead. Come up here to me. The two girls scrambled off their bed and on to their mother’s, where she settled them either side of her. Deirdre saw the only expression on Sally’s face was one of relief and she remembered her telling her fiercely how she hated her father. Someone else obviously hated him too, but not her father, because he had no need to. He didn’t know what Barney had done.

  ‘Daddy can’t have killed Barney,’ she burst out. ‘There weren’t no reason to. We never told him on purpose.’

  ‘Never told him what?’ Martha asked.

  ‘You tell,’ Deirdre said to Patsy. ‘It was you it happened to.’

  Patsy felt uncomfortable saying what she had to in front of the children but there was no point keeping anything a secret now. In the end, she sat down beside her mother and looked her full in the face as she said, ‘Barney attacked me. He dragged me down to that waste place by the quarry where his body was found and assaulted me.’

  Martha knew by her daughter’s eyes what manner of assault it was. Sadness and anger almost overpowered her and, though she still kept hold of Deirdre, she put her other arm around Patsy as the tears flowed.

  ‘And we never said,’ Deirdre cried. ‘Neither of us in case…in case Daddy went after Barney and got into trouble. See, there weren’t no reason for him to hurt Barney ‘cos he d’ain’t know nothing about that.’

  Maria, almost reeling from these fresh revelations, felt a terrible dread filling her body, because there was only one way that Deirdre could know so much about it. ‘Where were you when this was going on?’ she asked.

  ‘Watching from behind a wall,’ Deirdre said. Then turning to her mother, she told her, ‘It was the day you went to the pantomime with the others. Patsy came to pick me up from dancing and on the way home we saw Barney. Patsy told me to run and I did a bit at first, you know, but then I followed them because I thought Barney might hurt her or summat.’

  She looked at Patsy, ran her tongue over her lips nervously and went on, ‘I never even told you this, ‘cos you said it don’t do no good to keep talking about it and that, but Barney used to lie in wait for me after dancing lessons and say horrible things to me, just like he did after the concert.’

  There was complete silence in the room. Maria, Patsy and Martha were all staring at Deirdre and she herself was wondering where those words had come from. She concentrated on the black cloud that seemed to have lodged in her mind for so long and it was as if a window had appeared in it and the window was enlarging, expanding, pushing away the blackness to reveal swirling grey mist with unformed images behind it.

  She tried to make some sense of it, and very suddenly all the memories the black cloud had blocked began to seep through. As it all came back to her, she began to shake uncontrollably and she gave a sudden blood-curdling scream and then another and another. Overcome by nausea, she ran for the bathroom with a hand covering her mouth.

  It was Patsy who followed her and held back her hair as she vomited over and over, and who later wiped her face with a cloth. She knew dreadful things had happened to her sister, things she needed to talk about, but maybe not before Sally and little Theresa. She picked her up in her arms, as if she was half the age she was, and Deirdre was glad of it. Her legs felt very strange and she was weakened from being sick, so she held on tight and buried her face in Patsy’s shoulder.

  Patsy took Deirdre down to the living room, and there she sat in the big armchair, Deirdre still in her arms, and the child at last gave in to the tears threatening to engulf her. So much had happened to her and Patsy, and now her father. She cried about it all—cried as if she never intended to stop. Patsy just held on to her tight until the paroxysm of grief abated somewhat. Then she urged, ‘Tell me, Deirdre. This is too big a burden to keep to yourself.’

  Martha came into the room then, helping Maria, who was out of bed for the first time but insistent on knowing it all. ‘He was my husband, Martha,’ she said as they made their laboured way down the stairs. ‘I will fret more if I just lie here and try to pretend this does not affect me in the slightest. If you want to know the truth, I feel somewhat responsible, and really nothing you can say will change that attitude. I need to know what my bastard of a husband did to a little girl the same age as his own daughter.’

  And when she did, when Deirdre told what had happened to her and what she had done in response to it, Maria felt laden down with guilt and shame. She lowered her head, unable to meet anyone’s eyes as Deirdre said, ‘I killed Barney, not Dad. I know that now. He said that he would do to me what he had done to Patsy and then throw me into the quicksand in the quarry. I was struggling and that, and then I found a half-brick and hit him with it, and just kept on hitting him till I was sure he was dead.’

  ‘Dear Almighty God,’ Martha said. ‘For these dreadful things to happen to the two of you…‘

  ‘We couldn’t tell you,’ Deirdre said. ‘We couldn’t tell no one in case Dad killed Barney, or at least hurt him bad, and then I killed him after all.’ She suddenly began to shake and said in hushed tones, ‘I’m dead scared now. I don’t think I’ve ever been scared like this. Will I get locked up for years for that, or…or even hang?’

  ‘Neither,’ Patsy said. ‘You were a child and he was a man and you hit him with a brick to defend yourself. I think it was very brave of you and, by God, I wish I had thought of the same thing. If I had been as resourceful, such a thing would never have happened to you. And you were right, you had to make sure that he was dead. If you had just left him injured, in time he would have come after you again.’ Remembering then that she was talking about Maria’s husband, she said to her, ‘Sorry, Maria. This is probably really painful for you.’

  ‘It is,’ Maria said grimly. ‘And I’ll tell you what is painful: the fact that I brought this man into your home, Martha, and that he did so much damage in your family.’

  ‘You weren’t to know how he would turn out,’ Martha said, though she was still shaken. ‘You have nothing to blame yourself for.’

  The two policemen were very nice to Deirdre, as if they knew how terrified she was. They didn’t look like policemen at all, for they were dressed in ordinary clothes, but in a way that made it worse, as if she was telling her tale to a couple of strangers who’d walked in off the street. The room she was shown into was bare except for a table in the centre of it with two chairs arranged either side of it. They even pulled the chair out for her as if she was a grown up and she sat beside her mother and faced them across the table. Then one of them said, ‘Now we have already spoken to your sister and we would like you to tell us in your own words and in your own time what happened to you.’

  It was hard—the hardest thing Deirdre had ever done—to describe the things Barney had done. One of the policemen listened intently, sometimes stopping her to ask a question, or to go back over something, especially when she got to the incident in the brickworks where she killed Barney. The other man said very little, but made notes all the time she was speaking.

  At last it was over. Deirdre sat back in the chair with a sigh, suddenly aware of how weary she was. The first man smiled at her and said, ‘Good girl, Deirdre. Now my colleague here has made lots of notes and he has to have to have them typed up so you can sign them before you go home. What about if I ask your sister to join you and rustle up some tea, and I’m sure we can find a few biscuits?’

  Deirdre was sorry to learn that Sean could not come home with them, when they were ready to leave, but the man explained that Sean wasn’t being kept there and certain formalities had to be adhered to before he could be released. He promised to see that these were done as speedily as possible.

  In the middle of that night, Patsy was woken with stomach pains and for a moment or two she lay in bed, not quite sure what had woken her. Then she felt it again, that drawing pain beginning in her back and going around to the front, and she knew what it was, and she smiled, got out of bed and went to the bathroom. She was glad she had confided in no one, for the pregnancy she had dre
aded had turned out to be a false alarm after all, and no one need know anything about it. She knew she had to tell Andrew about the rape, however, for the time for secrecy was well gone.

  When, the following morning, she told Andrew, he was shocked—so shocked he couldn’t speak for a moment. He remembered how Patsy had appeared to change and how she would push him away and snap and snarl at him for little or nothing. Now he understood why she had behaved that way. Certainly the man didn’t deserve to live, he thought, for not only did he rape Patsy, he also abused, frightened and he was sure would have gone on to violate a young girl.

  ‘Say something, Andrew,’ Patsy pleaded. ‘Surely you can see that I couldn’t have married you with such a secret on my soul.’

  Andrew’s response had been to take her in his arms and declare that it made no difference to his love for her. If she could have seen inside Andrew’s mind, though, she would have seen how hard it had been for him to say those words. When Patsy had told him, he had felt cheated for a moment or two. He had imagined their wedding night as a journey of discovery, as they explored each other’s bodies, finding out how to please each other, and then on to true fulfilment. The first time for both of them, a coming-together in love, and now some filthy pervert had robbed him of that; some other man had touched Patsy in the most intimate and private of places.

  Then he realised that Patsy had been robbed too. ‘That’s why you used to push me away, isn’t it?’

  Patsy nodded. ‘I felt dirty and defiled, and not really worthy of your love.’

  Andrew felt humbled by such honesty and ashamed of himself for his earlier thoughts. ‘Ah, Patsy,’ he said. ‘My lovely, beautiful, darling girl, you mustn’t ever again feel this way. I love you with my heart and soul and nothing you have told me today will change that in any way.’