Mother’s Only Child (12 page)

‘You mind me telling you Maureen Kelsey has a daughter lives in a place called Aston in Birmingham. She saw them first at Mass. Course, it was Greg she recognised and he introduced his wife. She saw at once she was carrying, like, and then she saw her at the grocer’s getting her rations and she had the wee one in the pram.’ She shook her head and went on, ‘I thought him such a decent, honest man—I never dreamt he’d do that to you. Betray you that way.’

‘He didn’t,’ Maria said, ‘not really. That business with Nancy was long over.’

‘So he says.’

‘He was telling the truth, Bella. I’d have known if he was lying. And when the girl found herself pregnant, what could he do but marry her?’

‘Well, she’s having to cope without him now,’ Bella
went on. ‘because she was telling Maureen’s daughter she thinks he’s in North Africa. No one’s absolutely clear. You must forget him, girl, and I know that’s easier said than done, but if you were to go out a time or two, you might find it a little easier.’

‘You sound like Barney.’

‘Barney?’

‘Yes. He’s at me to go out too.’

‘With him?’

‘Aye,’ Maria said, and added with a wry smile, ‘Hardly on my own.’

Bella had her own views on Barney McPhearson and they were the same as her mother’s, and yet, well, it wasn’t as if Maria was overburdened with offers and in some cases it was better the devil you know. ‘Why don’t you go then?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Maria, you really can’t go on like this,’ Bella said sternly. ‘You’ll make yourself ill and it’s upsetting your daddy.’

Maria knew Bella was right about that. Her daddy was worried about her, convinced he was spoiling her life and wouldn’t rest about it, however much she tried to reassure him.

‘You think I should go out with Barney?’

‘Well, it would do no harm,’ Bella said. ‘Do you like him?’

‘Bella, I don’t know what I feel,’ Maria cried. ‘It’s like I’m dead and shrivelled up inside. But I suppose I like Barney well enough.’

‘Good God, girl!’ Bella exclaimed. ‘You’re too young to be shrivelled anywhere. And if you like Barney well
enough, that’s a start. Go out with him, for heaven’s sake, before you crumple into a heap of dust.’

Barney had negotiated with his brother to have Friday and Saturday nights free and took Maria to see
Fantasia
the following Saturday evening. Though Barney had thought it in the nature of a proper date, he didn’t think that Maria saw it that way at all. He told himself it was something that she had agreed to go over the doorstep with him at all and he knew he had to proceed with caution.

Before Maria left that evening, she’d sat down beside her father and held his hand. Once his face had been as ruddy as Sean’s through being out in all weathers, but now Sam’s face was pale and the skin slack so that it lay in folds. His eyes were rheumy, but still full of love for Maria. When he told her he was happy that she’d agreed to go out with Barney at last, she knew he meant it.

‘You’ll have to forgo the pub tonight.’

‘Aye, it’ll do me no harm.’

‘No harm indeed,’ Maria replied with asperity.

‘Ah, Maria, forgive my little weakness,’ Sam said. ‘It’s all the pleasure I have left now and it helps me cope.’

Maria immediately felt guilty. ‘Shall I run over to Rafferty’s for a couple of bottles of Guinness?’ she said. ‘I’ll have time before the bus.’

‘No,’ Sam said. ‘I have a bottle of better stuff,’ and he drew a bottle of poteen from under the covers.

‘Where did you get that?’ Maria asked, surprised.

‘Barney brought it in earlier.’

Maria sighed, but said not a word more. Instead, she gave him a glass and went up to get ready.

‘You look a picture, Maria,’ Sam said, when she came back into the room.

‘You’re biased,’ she replied with a smile, ‘and your brain’s addled with poteen. Listen, now, Mammy is asleep and Dora will be in directly. I’ll knock the door as I pass.’

‘Yes, yes. I’ll be all right. Don’t fret. Get yourself away.’

‘I will, in a minute.’

Just then there was a knock at the door. ‘That’ll be him,’ Sam said. ‘Don’t keep him waiting.’

Maria was impressed by Barney’s appearance. He was wearing the suit he wore to Mass. His shirt was pristine white and not creased. His shoes were highly polished and she smelt the Brylcreem and knew he’d tried to curb his unruly curls, but not terribly successfully.

However well Barney looked, though, Maria was convinced she was making a mistake in agreeing to go out with him at all. Her stiffness and stance told Barney quite clearly that she would reject any move towards greater intimacy and so he didn’t even try to put an arm around her shoulder, or hold her hand as they made their way to the bus stop Then she’d sat beside him in the bus as if she was a lump of wood.

It was slightly better when they got to the cinema. Although Maria did hold her body away from him pointedly at first, she did relax more as she began to enjoy the film. It was by the American, Walt Disney, whom everyone seemed to be talking about. Maria thought that if her opinion had been asked before she
had seen it she would have said she wouldn’t be interested in it at all. With all the animation and such, it sounded like something for weans surely. However, she found herself fascinated by it. She was glad it was as unlike the films she’d seen when she was with Greg as it was possible to be.

When they arrived home, it was to find her father fast asleep and Dora dozing in the chair. Maria’s conscience smote her. Dora and her daughter had been so supportive, she felt she’d never be able to repay the debt. Without them, not only would she not have got out tonight, but she’d not have been able to work and what would they have done then? No one can live on fresh air.

Gently, she shook Dora awake. ‘Do you want a cup of tea, or do you want to go straight home?’ she asked as Dora struggled to sit up straighter, her eyes still heavy with sleep.

‘Tell you the truth, Maria, I need my bed more than a drink,’ she said.

‘I’ll walk home with you,’ Barney said.

‘It’s just down the street. What d’you think would happen me?’

‘Well, I’m leaving anyway, aren’t I?’ Barney said, casting an eye in Maria’s direction. She knew she should offer him a drink of some such, say it was no bother, insist even, but she was too weary to play those sort of games and so she said, ‘If you don’t mind, Barney. I’m tired too.’

The flash of disappointment was gone in an instant. ‘Did you enjoy tonight?’

‘I did very much,’ Maria said sincerely. ‘Thank you for taking me.’

‘No problem,’ Barney said. ‘Maybe we can do it again, sometime?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Like next week?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Maria said. ‘That doesn’t just depend on me.’

‘If it’s me you are thinking of, Maria,’ Dora said, ‘then don’t. I can doze by your fireside as easy as I can by my own and everyone has to get out now and again.’

In the end a pattern was established and over the next few weeks, until the summer was passed and the autumn’s nip in the air, Maria and Barney saw
The Thief of Baghdad, The Philadelphia Story, Dumbo,
and
Mrs Miniver.
They’d also been out to dinner once, to a theatre in Derry to see
Fanny By Gaslight,
and once just to the pub, where they’d talked all evening and found out a lot about each other. After each date, unusually for her, Maria would tell Joanne all about it.

Joanne was delighted that Maria, at last, was beginning to live a little. She had been very concerned about that business with the other boy that Maria had once seemed crazy about. She had said they had decided to cool it till after the war, and that was all well and good, but then she never mentioned his name again, as if he had disappeared off the face of the earth. When once Joanne, intrigued, had asked about him, Maria’s eyes filled with tears and so she never asked again. Maria also seemed to have lost any of the gaiety she once had and seemed instead to be engulfed in misery. Joanne felt you could almost reach out and touch the sadness wrapped around her like a cloak.

Joanne knew Maria had been hurt, and badly, and had sincerely hoped that the experience hadn’t put her off men for life. That would be a tragedy altogether. But she was fine now. Here she was, going with another strapping chap, by all accounts, and one she had known for years. He had been once employed by her father too, and her father fully approved of him.

‘Do you love him?’ Joanne asked.

Maria hesitated. She didn’t love Barney like she had Greg, when just to whisper his name would fill her with joy and cause her heart to stop beating for a second or two, when she’d long to feel his arms around her, his lips on hers and the rapturous feelings they induced in her, especially when Greg’s hands had explored her body.

She had not wanted or invited such intimacy with Barney. ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘But I don’t think so. We don’t…you know.’

‘Kiss? You don’t kiss?’

‘We don’t do anything.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘No. I don’t really want to.’

‘And he puts up with it?’ exclaimed Joanne. ‘God, I didn’t think they made them like that any more. I’ve never met any. You’ve got yourself a gentleman, Maria. But be careful—even gentlemen have their limits of patience.’

Maria thought long and hard about what Joanne said. Even if she didn’t love Barney, she didn’t want the outings with him to stop. It was the only light relief she had. She now looked forward to their weekends and had begun to laugh again. She knew, though, that
if she wanted to continue to go out with Barney she had to start being fairer towards him.

It was as they were leaving the cinema the following Saturday, after seeing
Pinocchio,
that Barney said, ‘There’s a dance next week at Springtown Camp.’

Maria couldn’t help smiling. Joanne would give her eyeteeth to be in my shoes just now, she thought, because as yet she hadn’t been to one of the dances there. But how could she, Maria, go to a dance? She hadn’t the clothes, and even if she had, she didn’t know how to dance properly. So she said, ‘I haven’t danced for years. Anyway, they’ll hardly be playing the music for a jig or the odd hornpipe.’

‘No, they won’t,’ Barney conceded.

‘Well, I don’t know how to do anything else, waltz, foxtrot and all,’ Maria said.

‘There isn’t much of that either,’ Barney said. ‘By all accounts it’s mainly jitterbugging.’

‘Jitterbugging! What the hell is jitterbugging?’

‘The new craze sweeping America, if you believe all you read in the papers,’ Barney said. ‘Do you want to go?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’

‘Just for a look,’ Barney said. ‘Go on, Maria, say you’ll go. I haven’t seen jitterbugging either. I’d like to know what the fuss is all about.’

Maria couldn’t see Barney’s face in the blackout, but she heard the pleading in his voice and she felt sorry for him. He turned up every week, regular as clockwork, to take her to the cinema, to see something she chose, and she never gave anything back. A few times, he’d tried to hold her hand and she’d pulled
away. Each time he’d left her at the door and she’d gone inside, while he’d walked home with Dora. He’d never complained to her, though she’d seen the disappointment in his eyes. Surely she could do this one little thing for him? ‘If you want then.’

‘If you don’t like it, we don’t have to stay.’

‘No, all right,’ Maria said. ‘I expect I will like it well enough when I get there.’ She reached for his hand as she spoke and heard Barney’s sharp intake of breath as their hands met. It was surprisingly how comforting it was to have her hand held by a strong man’s, Maria thought, and as they made their way to the bus stop, Barney’s heart was lighter than it had been for ages.

That night, Barney was asked in and Dora made her way home alone, waving away Barney’s offer of help. ‘Not in my dotage yet, and don’t you forget it,’ she said.

Barney’s grin at Dora’s words took Maria by surprise. Barney was a handsome man, she’d always thought, but she hadn’t seen him as desirable. For all they’d been out together, she hadn’t counted them as dates. She’d never had the slightest interest in Barney that way. After Greg she thought she’d never feel that way for anyone again. Now it was quite reassuring to find she wasn’t dead inside, but had just been deeply asleep.

Barney too felt the easing of tension in Maria and accepted the tea she gave him. But he was careful not to push it, not to outstay his welcome. When he drew her into his arms to kiss her good night, she went willingly, and when his kisses became more ardent, she didn’t pull away, but responded.

He felt as if he was walking on air that night as he made his way home.

Maria was quite shocked by jitterbugging at first. It seemed too vibrant, the movements, such as they were, done in an almost abandoned manner. The place was, of course, dripping with Americans. Maria had come across many in Derry, but as she dressed in workday clothes, usually with her hair covered by a turban, she’d never had more than a cursory glance.

However, that night the dress she had on was one she’d made herself from some shiny green satin she’d had for ages. She’d often designed her own clothes and the dress was spectacular—fitted across the bust, with long flowing sleeves, the waist was dropped and the skirts fuller from there with little pleats tucking into the waistband.

Barney was almost speechless when he’d come to pick her up that evening. Her eyes looked greener and larger than ever. He saw many people turn to stare at Maria as they made their way into the hall. Nor was Maria allowed to sit at a table to watch all evening. She refused many offers to dance, saying she didn’t know how to do it, but eventually a couple approached.

‘Don’t say you don’t know how to do it, lady,’ said the man. ‘It’s easy. So, how will it be if I teach you, while my girl teaches your man?’

Maria felt she’d rather have crept away to the ladies’, but she saw by Barney’s face he’d like to do this and so she nodded her head and let the man lead her onto the dance floor. It was as easy as the soldier had prophesied, and the music great to dance to. Maria was only afraid when the man caught her around the waist and swung her around that she might show her knickers, for the skirt of her dress fanned out like a flower.