Jane grasped her arms then, squeezing hard until Mary met her eyes. ‘I should’ve told you something months ago, Mary, but there seemed no good to come of it till now. Da and Liam fought something fierce after your wedding. Near came to blows in the street. Da can’t forgive himself, the whole world hearing him shout that his son a coward. Not man enough to face his responsibilities. Yelling he hoped the men fighting on the Front had more guts and certain other manly bits than his son. Or God help us all.
‘Liam kept screaming it weren’t Da’s problem. Da need never lay a hand or eye on him again, or any of his either.’ Jane’s tears began to fall then. ‘Liam never spoke another word to Da before he left. So, you’ve got to know, Mary, it weren’t only you Liam ran away from, but Da. The pair of them stubborn as mules. Maw would’ve strangled the both by now. But Da doesn’t blame you. I’m sure of it.’
Mary shifted the babe across to her opposite arm to rub at the pain in her breast, unsure what to believe about anything anymore. Only her need for an answer had made her ask. ‘If it weren’t about me in Liam’s mind, why didn’t he tell me? Or take me with him? And our son?’
‘Oh, Mary, I don’t think Liam ever forgave himself for what he done to you. The night he and Da come home from Ivor Street after working out … your wedding, I heard him crying. He wouldn’t let up. Or talk to me at all. But I think Liam left because he wanted to make something better for you and the wean in Melbourne. Like that time he went traipsing in the snow for Maw’s shawl. Remember?’ Jane hiccupped on a sob. ‘How can Da act proper with you when he can’t look you in the eye for his shame? He needs time, is all.’
Tears fell from Mary’s eyes at the memory and soaked into the baby’s wrap, Joe not the only one to call his son a coward. Yet somewhere inside of her a small heaviness lightened. She might be able to live with herself easier if she and Joe could at least share the blame. Liam’s leaving made more sense now at least. She’d never have thought him one not to try at the marriage – for the wean’s sake – at least for a short time. She’d blamed herself every minute since Joe came to tell her the news. But he’d been no more to blame than herself. She could only hope in time she and Joe both could forgive themselves, and, in turn, each other. Until then … How would she bear it?
She kissed the softness of the babe’s cheeks. ‘You’ll know your father but, bonny boy. I’ll tell you all about the laddie who rained conkers on unsuspecting folk’s heads passing under the winter trees. And the boy who could cage a sweet from even old Mrs McGinty, oozing his palava and charm.’
From the shape of the sleepy eyes blinking back at her, she guessed the child might be the very image of Liam once his irises coloured up. And that was another thing she didn’t know whether to hope on or not.
‘We’ll find our way, you and I, Conor laddie. And food and clothes and whatever else you’ll be needing too.’
Yes, she nodded, determinedly. She would find a way, even if she hadn’t the foggiest notion how she was going to manage it – yet. She crossed herself, praying she’d not told her son his first lie.
A PROPOSAL
FEBRUARY 1916
Mary had been back in Ivor Street three weeks when Nate Carr came knocking on the door.
‘I’ve been to visit with my family and I’m off to Melbourne to enlist.’ His excitement didn’t let Mary get a word in, difficult as it was to talk to him at all, Maw flinging in and out, tsking her disapproval at uninvited male callers.
The second time Maw flounced into the newly furnished living room, she picked up Nate’s hat from the side table and, after resetting the doily, stood at Nate’s elbow holding it out. When Nate took it but remained seated on the couch, the woman hmphed her disgust.
Nate raised his eyebrows at her departing back. ‘I don’t mean to get you into any trouble, Mary.’
‘Take no notice of Maw. She’s not finished punishing me for my sins yet.’ Mary dropped her voice, but not her eyes from Nate’s questioning gaze. Maw’s damning attitude remained, despite her insisting it not. Her snipes and sniffs proof enough, and Maw’s eyes not the only ones to disapprove.
Meeting up with Harold Briggs in the Co-operative store, two days previous, and him raising his superior snout at Conor in her arms, Mary had practically snatched her packages from Mr Goodwell and run out the door.
She couldn’t explain to Nate her deepest hurt, her fear that the world and his wife saw Liam’s going away, and so too his death, as her fault.
She hated to think of Nate going away to war, but his wink behind Maw’s back when the woman stomped into the room a third time to wind the mantel clock got her smiling.
‘It’s not Friday, Maw.’
‘I can wind me own damn clock any day of the week I please, thank you, madam.’ Maw had the good grace then to redden and snapped shut the clock face door, hard as might crack the glass, before flouncing out of the room.
Nate leant forwards and whispered. ‘Do you want to come to Melbourne with me, Mary? My aunt in Richmond is looking for a boarder.’
Mary didn’t recall later if she made up her mind in the instant of Nate asking, or when Maw waltzed back into the room and plonked Conor in her arms, sniffing, ‘I think your son needs feeding when you’re about it.’
Gazing down at the sleeping wean and knowing him fed not one hour previous, and that as long as she lived under the same roof as Maw she’d be lumped in with her sisters and answering to Maw the same, pushed her into taking Nate’s offer seriously at least.
Melbourne – a place where no-one knew or cared if she’d been married, the when or the why.
But when she lay in bed that night, it was another face and plea etched in her mind that guided her final decision. The earnest gaze of Liam, before all the silliness, his desperate plea for Joe to understand his need for a life beyond the colliery. A plea she’d told herself she sympathised with, but had never fully understood. Even knowing how much Liam had wanted a different life. Not only for himself, but for any coming after him. If she’d truly understood that need, how different things might have been.
She made Liam a silent promise then. This wean won’t go down the pit. His feet’ll stay dry and his nails free of coal dust. I’ll see to it. No more could she give her husband now.
And no more would she rely on anyone else. Maw and Winnie had shown her that much – her mother happy to banish and ignore her for months. Her son the real and only reason she was allowed back home.
Don’t go feeling sorry for yourself. You just have to get on, as Da says. With Nate’s help perhaps she could – in Melbourne.
She refused to give breath to the fear scrabbling at the edge of her mind: was she doing the right thing by her son – or herself?
Her resolve turned steely next morning when Maw slammed the rolling pin down on the kitchen table at the first hint of her plans.
‘Haven’t you made enough foolish mistakes for one lifetime? What are you thinking, chasing the first fellow who comes along? Do you want to ruin yourself forever? No decent man will marry you. And if that one’s interested, he’ll wait.’
‘I’m not marrying Nathaniel, Maw. We’re only going on the train together. His aunt’s invited me to stay at her house in Melbourne and there’s more chance of me getting a job down there. Be fair. You know you don’t really want me here.’
‘Don’t be daft. We can help with the wean. It’s not like you’ve a husband to take care of you.’
‘No, Maw, I don’t. Another reason to start taking care of myself and me own. That much I have learnt.’
‘Yes, I’m sure – born of that ninny and her nonsense out at the farm? Another one giving in … to the first one along. You’ll not walk that path again, daughter, if I have any say in it.’
Maw waved the rolling pin in the air, as if daring her to argue.
‘I’ll not have your sisters exposed to – comings and goings. They’re good girls. You’ve to mourn your husband; it’s right. Time enough to go chasing flibberty ideas
and fellows then. Your husband’s not even cold.’
‘Maw, is that how you truly think? You don’t care what you say to me, do you?’ Mary’s back stiffened, any doubts drying on her lips. Maw would not yield her bad opinion. Staying to try to prove herself other in her mother’s eyes as pointless as any pleas Liam ever made to Joe.
‘Thank you for helping me make up my mind, Maw. I am going to Melbourne, for Liam’s sake as much as my own. And I’m going for our son.’
Conor’s cries started up timely beyond the wall and Mary’s feet marched out to him, steadfast along with her resolve.
A day later, going out the front door, Maw pressed a ten-shilling note into her hand.
‘That’s for the wean, lest he go hungry. It ain’t for you, my girl. You can starve a bit. Might teach you some humility or the right way to go about things. I’ll not see the babe go hungry because he’s born with a fool of a mother who wants to run away and leave us all.’
‘Maw, you told me often enough I made my bed. Now I’m going to lie in it – in Melbourne.’
‘Fiddlesticks! But you’ve a mind of your own to think, I s’pose. Just take care of me grandson. And bring him back to see us sometime. And write to let me know how he is, you hear?’
‘Yes, Maw.’
It was hard to know if the fading of Maw’s flaming hair might be softening her heart – at least towards her grandson. Perhaps it was because he was a wee boy, reminding her of all those she’d lost. Mary shrugged away the more cynical thought, unless Maw didn’t trust her to raise her grandson right – considered her still a child.
She supposed she couldn’t blame her – being not so sure how she was going to manage it herself.
Sitting alongside Nate on the Melbourne train, as it clattered over the Kilcunda Bridge, she calculated that if she were frugal, and found a position fast, the money once saved to join Liam, plus the money from Maw, would see her and Conor right for a few weeks. She gulped down a mouthful of nerves, hoping if all went to hell in Melbourne, the babe would be welcomed back at least. Maw would see him right.
THE LODGER
EGAN STREET, RICHMOND – FEBRUARY 1916
Mary would be forever grateful to Pearl Williams for taking her in, and for treating her son as if he were her own. The woman opened her pretty cream and green weatherboard cottage on Egan Street in Richmond, along with her heart.
‘I told young Nathaniel you can have the spare room. He only ever used it when he was in need of a city holiday. I don’t suppose one small leprechaun in the shape of your son is going to break my back. So that one can stay too. If he’s house trained.’
‘Are you sure, Mrs Williams?’ Mary asked, hardly able to believe her ears or eyes. She’d never had her very own bedroom before and never one so lovely or bright. Light filled the room, with its pale green organza curtains and a high iron bedstead, dressed in a matching, flowered coverlet.
Mary squeezed Conor to her and only in that moment when her heart lightened did she recognise how heavy it had weighed for so long.
‘Enough of the Mrs Williams,’ Pearl insisted. ‘That was my mother-in-law’s name. God rest the old harridan’s soul.’
Pearl took in washing, too, to help fill her purse. She said her husband Charles had gone off to war to prove himself ‘because he couldn’t send any sons’. To Egypt, to see the blooming pyramids. ‘Damned old fool!’ But Pearl stood up proud when she said it. The ‘damned old fool’s’ photograph, in army uniform, hung on the hallway wall, in a large, oval wooden frame. The convex glass bringing Charles Williams’ unsmiling face into the room with them. Pearl dusted it every Tuesday, a full five minutes. Yes, simply furious at him she was.
Only one other of Pearl’s relatives lived in Melbourne, a regular guest for Sunday tea, she said – Nate’s older cousin, Tom Robbins.
‘Doesn’t your other nephew want the room, then?’ Mary asked, before chomping her teeth on her tongue for mentioning the idea.
‘No. It’s been offered to him often enough. Tom works odd hours – at a hotel.’ Pearl rolled her eyes. ‘He paints and writes stories too – children’s stories – but he’s not in print yet. So he paces the streets in the middle of the night, with no regard to his bad chest, dreaming up his ideas and insisting a draughty flat the better place for him to be. Besides,’ Pearl dropped her voice to a whisper, ‘Tom’s from our unmentionable side of the family. Protestants, God forgive us!’
The twinkle in her new landlady’s eye belied any real disapproval but Mary grimaced more to think Tom Robbins might change his mind about the room. She barely heard Pearl tell how nobody in her family, except herself, spoke to Tom’s mother, Patricia, after she married out of the faith and refused to raise her children in the ‘the one and only Catholic Church’.
Lord, please help Tom Robbins sell his stories and never want to come live with his Aunty Pearl.
NO EXCEPTIONS
APRIL 1916
Pacing the Egan Street hallway, her infant son in her arms, Mary peered out the window panel at the front door, on the lookout for Nate Carr. She’d settled into Pearl’s house like it was meant to be and was eager to thank him. For herself and her son both.
Over the past six weeks, in the calm and quiet of Pearl’s orderly home, she’d found a peace she’d never experienced before, in spite of her grief. Pearl didn’t have to talk all the time, or give an opinion unless asked, unlike some.
Mary nuzzled her son’s downy head and thanked God and the angels, as she did every day, for all that was good and right in her world and tried hard not to think too often about what was not. Or Liam.
A knock at the door saved her from her thoughts.
To her delight it was Nate, looking fine in his new uniform, but he was only back for goodbyes.
Mary had never seen two men hug the way Nathaniel Carr and his cousin Tom Robbins did the first time they met up again. The men stood eyeball to eyeball, a dialogue crossing between the pair that belied words. Not more than three years stretched between them – Tom being the elder, at twenty-four – but Mary didn’t miss the fellow’s serious grey eyes held a hint of pain even while he wished Nate well.
The two could be brothers, boasting the same dark treacle hair and laughing eyes, though Nate’s complexion glowed ruddy, while Tom’s city-dweller pale.
‘Where are you off to, young rascal? As if I need to ask,’ Tom said.
Mary turned, pulling faces at her son, lying beside her on the settee, rather than intrude on such an intimate moment. She with a family who didn’t hug or embrace on the sweetest of days, nor the sourest dawn of death. Try as she might she couldn’t recall a single time Maw had held any of them past walking age. She hoped her own son might know different.
‘He’s growing into a fine fellow.’ Nate appeared at her elbow, pressing a lemonade into her hand and tickling the babe under his chin. ‘Reckon he’ll be running around soon enough.’
Mary smiled, not saying that might be awhile away yet, but happy for any admiration aimed at her son. She blinked away the sadness, he would never know such moments with his da.
Both men competed to win Conor’s biggest smile and after he was put to bed turned their teasing Mary’s way.
‘Have you ever seen one of them selkie women?’ Nate asked, raising his beer glass to his cousin. ‘Tom, the writer here, reckons you have such creatures in Scotland. Seals that come out of the sea and turn into beautiful women. And that you could be one yourself.’
Mary wasn’t sure whose face turned redder, her own or Tom Robbins’. ‘Get away, the both of you.’ She laughed, holding her glass up to cool her cheeks, glimpsing her embarrassment, along with Pearl, in the overmantel mirror. Grateful for the excuse to escape, she hurried out. ‘What can I do to help, Pearl?’
A few minutes later, carrying in the dinner plates, Mary smiled, catching the cousins jostling to sit at the head of the dining table, arguing the merits of eldest versus the guest-of-honour’s rightful place. The same antics she’d o
nce loved in Liam during their shared celebrations in the Pailis.
Pearl waved them all sit down. ‘Leave Charlie’s chair. You two brats sit opposite each other and pretend you’re in polite company. Behave yourselves now in front of young Mary.’
The light-hearted banter and laughter around the table brought on a sudden wave of homesickness that Mary determinedly shrugged away – glad to be laughing again and, rightly or wrongly, pleased at all the attention and ragging. If only it weren’t because Nate was going to war.
She wasn’t even aware he was speaking to her, until he nudged her arm.
‘What type of marvel would that be, do you think, Mary? Seeing that Eiffel Tower? I might get to bring you and Pearl back some of that French scent they rave about. Reckon I’ll have a few stories to tell you all when I get back too.’
The reason they were sitting there together – perhaps for a final time – came painfully real in the silence that followed. Glancing across the table at the lines of concern creasing Pearl’s lips, suddenly Mary was afraid for Nate. ‘Aren’t you scared?’ she blurted out. ‘What if you get injured? You could come back a cripple. Without a limb, or … worse.’ She slapped her hand over her mouth, horrified at where her blather had gone. But only that morning hadn’t she given up her seat on the tram to another bloke in uniform with his shirt sleeves pinned up with nothing inside to fill them? And Pearl told tales about Arthur Allan a few doors down whose family spoke in hushed tones on how the man was changed.
‘Nah, don’t you worry your head, Mary. I’m only going on a little holiday to explore a new part of the world. And …’ Nate laughed, ‘get paid six bob a day to do it. If I’ve got to do a bit of fighting on the side and up the tally of Fritz, so be it. But I’d as soon shoot over the buggers’ heads.’
‘You just bring your own jolly head back home safe, won’t you?’ Pearl said, more to the peas on her plate, a slight tremor in her voice.
No Small Shame Page 17
