With Love From Ma Maguire

by Ruth Hamilton

  Molly sighed. ‘I don’t know. There were some bad times, but nowt as bad as this. And to top it all, his wife’s on her way out with cancer.’

  ‘God bless her.’

  ‘Aye. Unless he gets wed again, our twins stand to gain three mills and about four dozen houses – not to mention the big estate. Paddy’ll hit the roof! I mean, what if Charlie Swainbank died sudden, eh? It’s all in the will, all written down that he’s their father. What’ll happen to us, Ma?’

  The older woman reached out and took hold of a chilled hand. ‘It might have been me, Molly. In your place. Yes, it might easily have been me.’

  ‘Eh? What are you going on about?’

  ‘Me and Charlie’s dad.’

  ‘What? I thought all that was rubbish. Didn’t you just look after his leg?’

  ‘I trounced him from Delia Street to kingdom come on several occasions, Molly. You see, I loved him.’

  Seconds ticked by. ‘You what?’ asked Molly finally. ‘That miserable old bugger?’

  ‘Yes. He wrote me poems, sent me fruit when I was ill, followed me through town just to catch a glimpse of the back of my head. Of course, I wouldn’t let him touch me, wouldn’t ever consider being a kept woman. But oh my Lord, was I tempted? And I hated him, Molly. My hatred for him was so strong that I had to pray for my soul’s very existence.’

  ‘Yet . . . yet you loved him?’

  A solitary tear made its way down Ma’s haggard face. ‘I worshipped the very ground on which he stood. Aye – another sin. His presence in a room was like physical torture, for I wanted so much to touch him, love him, be with him.’

  ‘Oh . . . Ma!’

  ‘I know! That’s why I shielded you and protected your pride. It was like looking at my own reflection – there but for the grace of God and all that kind of stuff. He died in my arms, Molly. I let him slip away without knowing him as a woman should know a man. Yes, look at my list of great mortal whoppers! I was cold the night he died, chilled to the bone. Nobody has ever warmed me like he did. Nobody.’ She began to shake with sobs of self-pity and regret.

  ‘You’ll . . . meet him in heaven, love.’

  ‘Will I? Is that where I’m going, is it where he’s gone to? And would heaven be big enough to hold the pair of us fighting like a couple of gutter children? At least you had the courage to love your man, Molly.’

  ‘Yes. But I love Paddy too.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘He’s gentle, Ma. There’s things about Paddy you can’t know, not as a mother. There’s more to Paddy than meets the eye, a lot more. I don’t want him hurt.’

  Ma dried her eyes. ‘What was it like seeing Charlie again?’

  ‘Not easy.’

  ‘So. You’d not leave Paddy for him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t leave Paddy for any man. But—’ She shook her head slightly.

  ‘Sure there’s no need to explain. I know what comes after the but, for didn’t I live with it all those years? Whatever, let’s hope we come out of this terrible pickle in some kind of order.’ She turned her head and continued, almost to herself, ‘The houses are joined – I’ve always known that. Aye, there’s a bit of old Granny in me after all—’

  The door flew open and Paddy fell in, his arms wrapped around the neck of a red-faced young policeman. The constable nodded tersely at the two women, then dragged his untidy charge across the floor.

  ‘Me legs have gone,’ announced Paddy as he found himself being forced into a fireside chair.

  The policeman straightened and fought to regain breath and composure. He looked accusingly at Molly. ‘Can’t you keep him in, Missus?’

  ‘Why? What’s he done now?’

  ‘I found him on St George’s Road having an argument with a lamp post. The subject of discussion was a bike – he reckoned the lamp post was trying to pinch it off him.’

  ‘He hasn’t got a bike,’ said Ma.

  ‘I know he hasn’t, Ma! It was my bloody bike!’

  Ma looked at Molly and Molly looked at Ma. The offending party slid down from his chair and landed gracelessly on the rug where he lay singing:

  ‘If you ever go to Ireland

  Will you kiss my dear mother for me . . .’

  Ma turned away from this scene, outwardly engrossed in a statue on the dresser, the figure of a boy holding a bunch of cherries to his lips. She dried her eyes of recent tears and fought the laughter that threatened in her chest.

  Molly gazed down at her husband. ‘Shut up, Paddy! We’ll have her next door banging on the wall again.’

  The policeman edged away towards the front door. ‘If he carries on, I’ll have to take him in for drunk and disorderly.’

  ‘And no visible means of support,’ interposed the voice from the floor. ‘’Cos me legs have gone . . .’

  This proved too much for the women. With one voice they began to laugh loudly, each clasping herself round the middle as if trying to contain such disobedient and unseemly mirth. The policeman, aware of the hysteria in these sounds, beat a hasty retreat from the house.

  ‘I am a sick man!’ moaned the sorry bundle on the floor. ‘Death’s door is where I’m at, yet me own mam and me own wife—’

  ‘Oh, get up the stairs, eejit,’ shouted Ma. ‘Go and sleep it off, won’t you?’

  Molly slumped against the wall. ‘He’ll never make it. Not without visible means . . .’

  With great difficulty, Paddy focused his eyes on his wife’s face. ‘You’ll be sorry when I’m gone,’ he said mournfully before beginning to crawl on hands and knees towards the stairway door. ‘No stomach for me food, me thumb on fire, a terrible disease filling me veins—’

  ‘That’s milk stout, not TB,’ yelled Ma. ‘Get out before I take a broom to your backside!’

  Alone once more, the two women rested in the pair of chairs that flanked the grate, each staring into the dying fire as sobering thoughts arrived to obliterate the memory of Paddy and his antics.

  ‘Funny how we’ve both loved Swainbanks,’ said Ma quietly. ‘I looked at Richard one afternoon in town – and it was as if I already knew all of this. Oh I cursed him many a day, laid so many bad wishes at his door that I frightened meself at times. All to protect my precious virtue. So. It happened to you instead, to my own dear girl.’

  ‘Don’t blame yourself. I don’t believe in all that stuff anyway. I had free will, Ma, same as the priests have always taught me since I turned. It was nowt to do with you and old Richard. Me and Charlie got in this mess without any help from you.’

  ‘Strange though.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So. What do we do, Molly?’

  ‘We open shops. He’s twisting my arm that far up my back – well, there’s no alternative. It’s blackmail, Ma, but I can’t fight it clean or even dirty. Aye. He’s paying the band, so we dance to his tunes. Charlie Swainbank has agreed to be your Irish uncle. For a while, at least.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Molly.’

  ‘So am I, love.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Aye, so am I.’

  Chapter 11

  On a balmy summer evening, Amelia Swainbank slipped into her final drug-assisted sleep, emerging now and then to reach feebly for her husband as the last agonies racked her emaciated body. For days he had remained by her side, a constant guardian and companion at the grim gate towards which she journeyed in spite of his staying hand. At the end, he prayed inwardly for her death, begged that she might be released from the unendurable. Not a word was spoken as Dr Blake inserted the needle, administering a dose that would push her gently and mercifully into an oblivion that had never been discussed, a decision made without the uttering of a single syllable. Nurse Fishwick and Charles bore witness to this, hanging on to each other like brother and sister while the doctor performed his invaluable act of kindness.

  It was over. The two professionals managed, at last, to drag him away from the cooling corpse. He wandered out to the landing and howled like a baby, eventually allowing himself to be led to his own room.
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  The doctor addressed his colleague. ‘Stay with him, Nurse. Don’t leave his side for a minute – get help for your own rest times. This will be his undoing if we don’t take care.’

  ‘I’ll not leave him, Doctor Blake. Not till he’s right. And . . . thanks. God bless you.’

  ‘Does He approve of me?’

  She blinked rapidly to clear the wetness from her eyes. ‘There’s law beyond the strictly legal. You’re a good man and a damn fine doctor.’

  He went away to attend to the paperwork. Just another signature, a brief list of causes primary and secondary, date and time, dot the I, cross the T, close the file. Just another beautiful and agonized soul delivered prematurely to its Maker, very probably not the last to travel on an assisted passage ticket.

  The doctor’s main concern was not for Amelia whose sufferings were over, nor for what he himself had perpetrated in order to ease her exit from this world. His mind was fixed on Charles Swainbank, a man who, until recently, had seemed to have everything. True enough, Amelia had been on her way for some time, but to lose the boys and his wife so quickly – how would the poor chap cope? The swift deterioration in Amelia after her sons’ deaths had come as no surprise, but what would happen now to Charles, alone in the world except for employees and a few business contacts? He’d never been a great one for friends, hadn’t Charles, wasn’t an easy man to get to know. Ah well. The doctor drove slowly towards the main gate, his head shaking sadly as he thought of the big man and his great tragedy.

  Charles lay on his bed, eyes travelling over moulded ceiling covings, along the picture rail, down the length of a rosewood wardrobe and on to the substantial figure of Nurse Fishwick. The doctor had administered something to slow him down, yet his senses remained alert to the point of pain. She sat beside him in a wicker chair, a piece of neglected needlework resting crumpled on her knees.

  ‘Nurse?’

  ‘Try to relax, sir.’

  ‘Stay with me.’

  ‘I shall. If you get a nightmare, somebody’ll be here all the time, so don’t you be worrying about dropping off.’

  ‘No.’ He pushed himself further up on the pillows. ‘I didn’t mean that. When it’s over – if I survive all this . . .’ He waved a hand towards the door. ‘Stay with me. I’ll give you the rate and half again for you to take charge of number one as State Nurse and Welfare. You can see to them when they get hurt, help judge their fitness for work, go on home visits when there are problems.’

  She pulled the covers to his chin. ‘We’ll discuss it tomorrow—’

  ‘You could wear a smart suit instead of that uniform. And you can carry on living here as a staff member – nice rooms and full board laid on . . .’ He was gabbling now, chattering like one trying to make his way out of a maze of shock by dwelling on matters mundane.

  ‘All right. Whatever you say.’

  ‘You’ll do it?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll do it. I’ve nowhere else to go, Mr Swainbank, nowhere definite. I just wander round in circles looking after incurables – a change would do no harm.’

  ‘Haven’t you a family – parents?’

  She plucked at the embroidery silks, her face a mask over submerged emotions. ‘No.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘Cancer.’

  ‘Both?’

  She nodded quickly. ‘My mother was widowed, died two years ago. I nursed her to the end. It was then I decided to work in people’s homes, help them to stay out of hospital if possible. She hated hospitals, did my mother.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘A brain tumour when I was fifteen.’

  Charles reached for the large strong hand. ‘Then you know how I feel at this moment, Nurse?’

  ‘Nobody can know that, sir. But you’re not by yourself. I remember my own private grief, so I can meet you halfway. It’s personal, everybody takes it differently. The one common factor is that there seems to be no reason for going on, especially when you’ve been through a few bereavements. But there is a reason – always. At first, you can’t see it, but it’s still there, very strong and enduring. Mine was helping folk get by, seeing they were all right before I moved on to another case. I’ve never left right off after a funeral. When you nurse the terminally ill, you nurse a whole family.’

  ‘Except here. There’s no family here, is there?’

  She patted his arm. ‘There’s you. Whether it’s a brood of ten or a person on his own, I see the job through.’

  ‘And what’s my reason for going on?’

  She smiled patiently. ‘I could say your mills and your workforce, but I won’t. Your reason is that you’re here – it’s as simple as that.’

  ‘I don’t want to be here. Not without them, not without a future.’ He paused for a while, deep in thought. ‘Is suicide such a terrible thing?’

  ‘Not always, no. If you’re at the end of your rope and tormented to the point of mental illness. But it’s not for you, Mr Swainbank. Yours is a bright light, too healthy to be snuffed out on an impulse. You’ll go on living your life as best you can because you fear nothing. More positively, I’d say life clings to you and won’t let go. Anyway, the reasons outside yourself will just arrive. But it’s the inside ones that count.’ She pushed his hands under the counterpane. ‘I’ll pop down and make us both a drop of cocoa now.’

  In the kitchen, she found the cook, Perkins and Emmie deep in grief, the two women sobbing at the table, the man sitting on the floor in front of the open fire, his arms wrapped around Klaus, the black labrador which had been Mrs Swainbank’s pet for many a year. The dog raised his soft muzzle and whined pitifully. ‘He knows,’ said Perkins sadly.

  ‘They always do.’ The nurse crossed the room and stroked black satin ears. ‘You’ll have to look after your master now,’ she said to the unhappy animal before turning to observe the three servants. ‘Listen to me, all of you. I know I’ve not been here long and you might think I’m talking out of turn, but he’s in a bad way up there. I don’t want to cause any more upset, but I believe you ought to know he’s not thinking straight.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Mrs Marshall made an attempt to dry her streaming eyes on her sleeve.

  ‘Well, planning for the future one minute, carrying on with the next breath as if there is no tomorrow. He might just damage himself, try to . . . oh, you know what I’m talking about. He’s lost all his loved ones – it’s unhinged him. Now, I realise I’m the nurse, but I can’t keep my eyes open all the time. We shall have to work shifts. So I suggest you all pull yourselves together and help me, otherwise we might well lose what’s left of this family.’

  ‘No!’ Emmie jumped up from the table. ‘Will I go to him now, Nurse?’

  ‘Yes. Take him some cocoa and a biscuit – he’s had nothing solid since about Thursday.’ She fell wearily into a chair. ‘This is one of my days for wondering about God. I mean, what can I do for Mr Swainbank after the things heaven’s allowed to happen? And why did this family arrive at all that trouble – two boys and a lovely lady snuffed out in a matter of weeks? People think I’m hard because I’m a nurse and I see things – but oh no, that’s not the case. It gets to me! It does!’ She hugged herself and began to rock back and forth, her own tears dangerously close. ‘It was the boys that finished her, Mrs Marshall. She might have gone on without too much pain if—’

  ‘Nay lass.’ Mrs M dashed round the table, her own sorrow set aside for the moment. ‘Her would have died anyroad, love, with or without her lads and with or without a nurse. Well away before you ever came near, she was, ’cos I watched her fading with me own eyes! Don’t take on! There were nowt in this world you could have done, girl, nowt this side of a miracle!’

  ‘I feel so . . . useless!’

  Perkins leapt up and came to the table, throwing a heavy arm around the nurse’s trembling shoulders. ‘What’s thy name, lass?’

  ‘Caroline – Carrie for short.’

  ‘Well look here, Carrie for short, we
shall “Carrie” thee out next news if we’re not careful. You don’t look so good yourself. Aye, it’s right enough, we did cod ourselves as you’d be used to watching pain without it bothering you. You should have come to us before, love. Not a one of us here would have turned a back on a worker in this house. Now, you just listen to me. Will you be stopping on?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He’s for putting me in the mills as welfare – says I can live here if I like – but he might not be talking sense—’

  ‘Yes he is, ’cos he’s mentioned it to me before this, asked me and Mrs M here our opinion of you, like. You live at Briars if you want. There’s none of us has family apart from one another. Mrs M’s never married, gets called Missus on account of her job. Me and Emmie – we’re on our own too, so we stick together – safety in numbers. And him upstairs is no bad master. You could do a lot worse than throw in with us.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll stay if he asks me again. I’d like to settle and I’ve no home apart from a couple of rooms in Bradford Street.’

  Mrs Marshall poured a large drink and pushed the glass into the nurse’s tense hands. ‘Put yourself outside of that, lovey. It’s only cooking, but it’ll take the sharp edges off. We mun stick together from now on. Emmie can do the first shift while midnight, then I’ll take over. Jacob here will sit with him in the morning, give you a rest up to dinner. Nay lass, we’ll not let our master go, not without a damn good fight . . .’

  And so it continued until well after the funeral, the four of them dogging Charles Swainbank’s every step as he made his uncertain way through a second bereavement while the first had not yet served its time. Rules in the house slackened; at first, the master took his meals on a tray in the study because the isolation of the dining room was too chilling to bear. Most weekends and evenings he spent walking with Klaus and Perkins, pacing through his mourning in companionable silence with servant and dog.

  Then, one unseasonably cold Sunday, Charles announced his intention to dine in the kitchen, nominally to save fuel, actually to escape from solitude and the negative thoughts that plagued lonely moments. So began the gradual erosion of that fine divide between the residents of Briars Hall and while Charles remained indisputable master, an enduring comradeship was born between the five of them, often extending to daily workers who ceased to express their surprise on finding Mr Swainbank doing his accounts by the kitchen fire when they arrived for a tea-break.