Mother’s Only Child (24 page)

‘Barney will see to him,’ Maria said. ‘He’s having a lie-in, but he’ll get up if I ask him.’ She didn’t say he had not been in until the early hours, and the doctor didn’t ask what kept a fit young man in his bed past mid-morning. It was not his concern.

Sarah’s face was not serene, as Maria had expected, but creased up in a grimace. Deep scarred lines dragged at her mouth and nose, and met across her brow. Maria was glad her eyes were closed.

‘She looks as if she’s still suffering,’ Bella whispered.

Maria nodded. ‘The doctor said it won’t be long,’ she said, ‘and I hope it isn’t.’ Bella agreed with her.

By two o’clock, the growling in Bella’s stomach could be ignored no longer and she lay Sarah’s hand back on the counterpane and stood up, stretching to ease her aching back. ‘God, I feel as if I’ve sat here for hours,’ Bella said. ‘I am as stiff as a board and feel as if I could eat a horse.’

‘And me,’ Maria said. ‘But it’s a bank holiday. Nowhere will be open.’

‘The nurses might know of some place,’ Bella said. ‘This won’t be the first time this has happened.’

She found the nurses very accommodating indeed, and a tray of tea and sandwiches were sent up from their canteen. The food, but more importantly the tea, revived both women.

‘People say your life passes before you when you
are about to die,’ Bella said. ‘How the hell do they know these things?’

‘I don’t know and it might not be true at all,’ Maria said.

‘Anyway, remembering would hardly bring solace to Sarah,’ Bella pointed out, ‘apart from the love she had for Sam and you, of course. Some people can only take so many knocks in life before their mind shuts down and I think that’s what happened to your mother.’

‘Aye, I think you’re right,’ Maria said. ‘Poor Mammy. And yet, you know, when you go to an England that has been at war so long and see the people, you are staggered by the suffering and the tragedy of it. Sometimes they have lost everyone belonging to them, like Martha, or have had their houses bombed from under them, and are often injured or maimed in some way themselves. It’s a wonder their asylums aren’t bursting at the seams. From what I saw, they just seem to get on with it.’

‘Different characters, see,’ Bella said. ‘People can cope with different levels of stress and calamity.’

‘Aye,’ Maria mused. ‘I suppose. Now Mammy’s ordeal is almost over I will be glad. She isn’t a happy woman and no one in their right mind would want her to pull through this.’

Bella said nothing, for there was nothing to say. A moment later there was a guttural sound in Sarah’s throat and Bella knew it was the death rattle. The chest stopped moving and there was a sudden silence in the room. ‘She’s gone, Maria,’ Bella said gently.

‘I know,’ Maria said with a sigh, and she kissed her mother’s paper-thin cheek.

‘I’ll not have her lie in a pauper’s grave,’ Maria told the hospital manager, who’d come to see her to discuss funeral arrangements. ‘I want her body to brought back home to be buried in the churchyard in Moville. ‘Don’t think I can’t pay for this,’ she added at the look on the man’s face. ‘I have money put by.’

In the Post Office, a sizeable amount, which she added to each week, had accumulated, and some of that would be used to lay her mother to rest for the last time.

Barney was in total agreement with Sam that Sarah’s demise was a blessed relief. He knew it mattered to Maria that her mother was buried in Moville, and he told her she could leave all the arrangements to him. In response to Maria’s telegram, Sean said he was coming over, but he would be alone because Martha couldn’t leave the children.

Maria was so glad to see her uncle alight from the bus the day before the funeral, for her father had gone to pieces altogether. Sean saw that himself. The smell that emanated from Sam he’d encountered before in alcoholics, and he doubted he’d live long after his wife. But, he told himself, at least Maria has Barney by her side now. Despite Maria’s assurances to him after the wedding, he had been worried. He knew the poor start the boy had had—it had been spoken of many a time—and sometimes that kind of thing could scar a man for life. But he seemed to have made a turnaround and Sean was impressed with how he’d lifted the burden of the funeral totally from Maria shoulders, which was how it should be.

Both Barney and Sean worked on Sam the morning
of the funeral to see he was at least dressed respectably so that he’d not shame the family. They could do nothing about his yellowing skin and eyes, nor the way his hands shook, but Sean took the bottle of whiskey from him, despite his protests, and put it away until the funeral was over.

Sam knew what they were doing and had no desire to bring disgrace on anyone, least of all his dear daughter, so, though his innards craved a drink and the pains that began in his stomach spread throughout his body, he bore it bravely and said not a word about it.

There were not that many in the church for the Requiem Mass and that saddened Maria. She guessed it was the fact that Sarah’s death was tainted with the slur of mental illness that kept people away. Also Sarah had been away, so it was a case of out of sight, out of mind. She was grateful for the faithful group that gathered about the grave to drop clods of earth on the coffin.

‘I’ve not shed a tear for her,’ she said later to Bella when they were back in the house. ‘Isn’t that a dreadful admission to make?’

‘No,’ Bella said. ‘That body laid in the churchyard isn’t your mother. That mother died the day they found Sam crushed in the docks.’

Maria knew Bella was right, her mother had died long ago. She’d missed her and needed her so much at the time. Now she was dead and buried, and she knew with a dread certainty that soon her father would be too.

Sean knew it too, and he said as much to Barney as he watched Sam drink one glassful of whiskey after
another. ‘He’ll drink himself to death,’ he said. ‘You don’t think we should try to stop him?’

‘Why should we even try? We’re not the man’s gaoler.’

‘No, but—’

‘Look,’ Barney said. ‘I know you mean well, but Sam knows what he is doing. He has made this decision, and isn’t it really his to make? We tried at first and, God knows, I did my best, but he feels useless and has told me often. He feels like a parasite, not only living off us, but sucking the life out of Maria in the process. He thinks he would be better out of the way. God knows, I think highly of the man, but if I’d been left like him I’d have wanted to do away with myself before this. I don’t think anyone could stop him now, anyway. It has gone too far.’

‘Doesn’t it upset Maria to see her father in this state?’ Sean asked, troubled.

‘It did,’ Barney admitted. ‘She takes it all in her stride now.’

‘Maybe it’s as well there’s been so sign of weans yet.’

‘Oh, we’ve plenty of time for weans,’ Barney said, trying to hide a slight shudder. ‘I’m in no hurry.’ Maria becoming pregnant, or at least saying she was pregnant—he wasn’t quite sure which—had forced him into a marriage he wasn’t ready for and didn’t want, and had tied him down enough. He had no desire for the responsibility of children; he had never had much time for them.

Sean saw these emotions pass through Barney and knew that Maria felt quite differently, but he said
nothing. He excused Barney. He was young yet and he’d had no experience with youngesters. If and when he had his own, it would be different, Sean was sure.

He just about to go over to speak to Sam when he saw Con cross the room. From the malevolent look on his wife’s face, Con’s decision to have a few words with his old friend on the day his wife was buried did not meet with her approval, but then when did anything meet with Brenda’s approval?

Sean made his way over to Maria instead.

‘All right?’

‘Aye, I’m grand.’

‘We won’t let this go on long,’ Sean promised. ‘Barney and I will head them all off to Raffety’s before long.’

Maria nodded gratefully. The noise was getting to her and so was the smoke. She’d be glad to get the house to herself for a while. ‘Will you take Daddy?’

‘If he is in any fit state,’ Sean said. ‘If he isn’t, I’ll put him to bed before I leave.’

Sean didn’t want Sam to come to the pub that night really, because he wanted to talk to Barney, so he was glad when Sam fell into a stupor and he was able to leave him in his bed. At the pub, he drew Barney to one side. ‘I know I’ve spoken of this before, but what are your plans for the future? Both of us know Sam won’t last long, and the war won’t last for ever either.’

‘People have been saying the war is coming to an end for years.’

‘I’d say it’s real this time, especially now that Italy has surrendered,’ Sean said. ‘Anyway, eventually the war will be over, and Sam will be lying beside Sarah
in the churchyard. I wonder if you’ve ever thought of moving to Birmingham? The two of you could bide with us and welcome till you got your own place. I could probably get you set on at the Dunlop if I put in a word. The money’s good.’

Barney managed to suppress the shudder that ran through him. Work like a black in some stinking rubber factory for a pittance of a wage? Not likely. Yet he knew once the war was over and Sam had died he wouldn’t be staying in Moville. He’d already discussed it with Seamus. The two of them and Maria would be moving to Dublin where the pickings were richer altogether.

Sean, though, didn’t need to know any of this yet and so Barney said, ‘I’ll certainly think of what you said, Sean, and thank you for the offer, but you understand I won’t be able to give you a firm answer straight away?’

‘I know that,’ Sean said. ‘It’s just an idea to think about.’

‘I appreciate it,’ Barney said. ‘Now shall we join the others?’

They moved to join the cluster of men around the bar, who seemed intent on drinking the pub dry in an attempt to give Sarah a good send-off.

Maria missed Sean greatly after he’d returned home and so did her father. She was glad of her job, which stopped her feeling sorry for herself. The girls at work had been full of sympathy, hearing of the death of Maria’s mother, but she knew many of them would have thought it a relief, the best thing, and she didn’t blame them. Hadn’t she felt the same, and her father
had actually expressed it, so she felt a bit of a fraud accepting their condolences. She hoped by the time spring really took hold and the days were lighter and warmer she would be able to shake off the slight depression that was making her feel so low and tired all the time.

Much to Maria’s consternation she heard that two units of the Royal Warwickshires were camped near Ballykelly Airport. At first, she worried Greg might be among the men—and she didn’t know whether to treat him as just a person she used to know—but she saw no sign of him. However, some girls went out with the British boys, and by the middle of May they could tell the others of the rumours abounding in Britain about what was happening on the South Coast.

‘Something’s up, all right,’ one girl said. ‘My chap went home on leave and he said everyone was on about it.’

‘My feller said the whole of the South Coast is out of bounds to civilians,’ put in another.

‘Can only mean one thing, my chap says,’ put in the first girl. ‘Another bloody Dunkirk.’

‘Surely not?’

‘Well, what else?’

‘Whatever it is, you shouldn’t be discussing it,’ rapped out the factory supervisor. ‘We’ll all know soon enough. Till then do as the posters advise and “Keep Mum”. Careless talk really can cost lives. We can help the service men best by not rattling on and on about something we really know little about as yet.’

But, though the girls knew what the supervisor said was sensible, the rumours, which increased when many
of the Warwickshires were shipped home before the end of May, continued to filter through the factory.

It was in early June when Maria and Barney, who were having a drink prior to going to bed, heard the drone of what seemed like hundreds of planes overhead. Maria had often heard and seen planes taking off from the airports across the Foyle to protect a convoy, but this thundering in the sky was more that that. She looked at Barney fearfully.

‘Shall we go and see?’ he asked.

Maria glanced immediately at her father, but he was spark out, so she nodded and slipped out into the summer’s night.

They were not the only ones gathered in The Square, to watch wave after wave of planes flying above their heads. Then someone standing on the green shouted out that the ships were leaving too and Barney, dragging Maria after him, went to see. Many of the ships were heading out to sea.

‘This is it then,’ Barney said. ‘Make or break, this is. Won’t be no second chance.’

That night in bed their lovemaking had a sort of desperation about it, for they knew, despite their neutrality, their fate was inexorably joined to that of Britain: if Britain fell, so would Ireland.

At work next day, no supervisor could still the talk that ran riot through the factory.

‘Tuesday, the sixth of June,’ one girl said. ‘We’ll remember this date, all right.’

‘Aye. It’s either the beginning of the end, or one massive defeat.’

‘I’ll shoot myself if the Jerries come here,’ one girl declared fiercely.

‘Oh, very dramatic,’ another asked. ‘What with? A popgun?’

‘That’s defeatist talk, anyway,’ one of the girls shouted from further down the line. ‘I’ll not kill myself. I’d rather stay and fight the buggers.’

‘Oh, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ Maria said. There was a murmur of agreement.

However, there was a mood of expectancy that morning.

Then the supervisor came bustling into the workroom. ‘There’s been an newsflash on the wireless from Reuter’s news agency,’ she announced. ‘It said Allied armies began landing on the coast of France this morning.’

There was a collective sigh around the workroom.

‘So now we know,’ said Joanne. ‘But this is just the start of it.’

‘Aye,’ another put in, ‘they were in France before and look what happened.’

‘If they are routed this time, we’ve had it, the lot of us.’

‘Huh, I’ll say,’ Joanne replied. ‘I haven’t terrific confidence in the Home Guard to protect us all.’