Mother’s Only Child (28 page)

‘I don’t know. I’m having a good enough time without her.’

‘That needn’t change,’ Seamus said. ‘At least not if you’re master in your own house, like I’m always telling you. Maria is your wife, not your bloody gaoler. She is there to cook your meals, keep the house clean, have your clothes washed and ironed, and be ready to accommodate you in bed when you fancy it. She is not there to tell you what to do, or monitor your every move. You have given her too much of her own way and she has those two witches from the shop to support her. Here she would have no one, and she’d soon see what side her bread was buttered if it was a case of knuckling down to do as she was told, or eating.’

Barney shook his head. ‘Maria isn’t…you don’t know her, Seamus.’

‘I don’t need to know her personally,’ Seamus said. ‘She is a woman like any other.’

Then one night Seamus said, as they left the house, ‘There’s a man I want you to meet tonight. He’s our landlord, actually—name of Ned Richards. He owns this house—and not just this one. The man is rolling in money. I met up with him at the casino last week and was telling him about you. He was mighty interested in the boatyard.’

Barney looked at him open-mouthed. ‘Don’t be daft! No one would want that place, man. The fishing is finished.’

‘He isn’t interested in the fishing.’

‘Then what…?’

‘At least listen to what the man has to say. That can’t hurt, can it?’

And it didn’t hurt. Barney found he got along fine with the man who had plans for developing the
boatyard for the tourist industry now that the war was over.

Two days later Barney received a telegram from Maria.

Daddy much worse. He’s asking for you. Please come home immediately. Maria.

There was a warehouse job planned for that night, but Barney knew if Sam died before he reached home he’d never forgive himself and made plans to return immediately.

Maria didn’t really know how to greet Barney. He’d been gone almost three months and it was now the beginning of November. She knew he’d likely been up to all sorts in Dublin, but it couldn’t really be gone into that night, at least not until they went to bed and had a little privacy. And so she had the house cleaned and tidy, the baby fed and asleep in the pram, her father washed and a casserole in the oven when Barney opened the door.

The day had turned blustery and cold, and the warmth of the room hit Barney like a wave. He sniffed the air appreciatively. ‘Something smells good,’ he said. ‘Bloody marvellous, in fact.’

Maria had turned at his arrival, and Sam cried, ‘Barney! Lad, it’s good to see you.’

Maria knew whatever Barney did, Sam would forgive him, and she wondered if he even remembered what he had heard from the man who had brought them the news of Barney, or even had any idea of the
time that had elapsed since he had last seen Barney. The drink had addled his brain to the extent that he was losing his grip on reality and seemed to live in a world of his own most of the time.

She didn’t know how to behave herself. For better or worse he was her husband, the father of their child. So when Barney put down his bag and took Maria into his arms, she went without protest. At first, she merely submitted to the kiss. Then she felt her body betraying her as the kiss grew in intensity, and Barney’s hands moved over her body, pressing her against him in a way that was barely decent.

When he released her he was smiling. ‘Later,’ he said. ‘That is, if you can wait that long.’

Maria’s whole body was tingling and his words caused a tremor to run through her. She busied herself laying the table, while Barney rooted in his bag for a minute before crossing the room to Sam. The mark of death was on the old man’s face, but Barney’s manner to him was the same as it had always been.

‘Come on, you old codger,’ he said. ‘I’ve got you a present,’ and he produced a bottle of single malt whiskey.

There were tears in Sam’s rheumy eyes. ‘Ah, lad…‘ he said. Barney noted how he was wheezing and how each word was punctuated by a gasp. He felt immense sympathy for the man. ‘God Almighty, that looks good,’ Sam went on. ‘Now if you could just get me a glass…?’

‘Daddy, I said you could have another drink when you’d eaten something,’ Maria chided.

‘Don’t fuss me, Maria,’ Sam said. ‘I have everything I need in this bottle.’

Barney hauled Sam up in the bed gently and then he fetched two glasses. He poured a generous measure into both and as he placed them on the table beside the bed, he said, ‘There’s plenty more where that came from.’ He saw the look of gratitude on Sam’s face.

‘You don’t help,’ Maria grumbled, when Barney came back to the table and sat down

‘God, Maria, nothing will help now,’ Barney said quietly. ‘He’s on the way out and there is nothing either of us can do about it.’

‘I know,’ Maria said with a sigh. ‘God knows, I will miss him when he goes, and yet I know he’s ready—been ready for years.’

‘I am fond of the man myself,’ Barney said. ‘I always have been, but we have to face the inevitable and decide what we will do when Sam eventually dies.’

‘What do you mean?

‘Well, I mentioned it in the letters. I want us all to move to Dublin.’

‘To where?’ Maria said scornfully. ‘Some rat-infested slum. You want me to bring Sally up in a place like that and be surrounded by vagabonds and scoundrels? Sorry, Barney, but I have no desire to go to Dublin.’

Suddenly Seamus’s word came back to Barney about being master in his own house and not allowing Maria to have her own way too much. He was irritated by her attitude and he hissed quietly, so Sam shouldn’t hear, ‘I don’t give a tinker’s cuss for your wishes. When Sam dies, I will inherit both this house and the boatyard, and I will do with both as I see fit. You will have to put up with it and as my wife you will go where I say.’

Maria regarded Barney with alarm. She had few rights now and she knew on her father’s death she’d have even fewer, but, by God, she’d make her position clear. ‘Don’t you dare try to bully me, Barney McPhearson. Whatever you say I am not going to Dublin—not now, not ever.’

‘It’s about time we got this clear,’ Barney said icily. ‘I am head of this household and as my wife—’

‘Oh, I’m your wife, am I? Pity you didn’t remember that I was your wife when you went swanning off and I didn’t even know where you were.’

‘You knew why that was.’

‘Oh, aye, I knew all right, eventually,’ Maria commented drily.

‘I got word to you as soon as I could,’ Barney said, his voice rising in anger. Maria looked across at her father, but he was slumped against the pillow. Barney seemed unaware of Sam as he thundered on, ‘And didn’t I come like the very devil when you said your father was worse?’ He banged his fist on the table as he cried, ‘And it wasn’t my bloody fault you had the baby the same day I disappeared.’

Sam had stirred at the pounding of the fist, but the child jumped and began to grizzle.

‘Leave her be!’ Barney commanded, as Maria got to her feet with a little sigh. ‘She has to learn you cannot be at her beck and call.’

‘She is but a baby!’ Maria hissed. ‘Don’t you dare take your bad humour out on her, and don’t try telling me when I can tend to her. I will do as I see fit. Anyway, she probably needs a feed, but might have slept a little longer and given me chance to finish my dinner if you
hadn’t tried throwing your weight about.’ She lifted the child as she spoke.

Barney growled, ‘You gave me cause.’

‘I did no such thing.’ Maria sat down with the wailing child and pulled up her jumper to begin feeding her. Barney felt a strange jealousy assail him as he watched his child sucking, and her little hands kneading the breasts he considered his property.

He regarded the baby with distaste. He had no time for daughters. Other men’s daughters, grown to luscious maturity, he could handle with no bother at all, but daughters of his own? No, definitely not. But he contented himself with saying, ‘She’d better not be any trouble tonight, Maria, I’m warning you. I have been away a long time and I will want you tonight, and as far as I am concerned, she can cry her bloody head off. My needs come before a child’s any day.’

Barney attacked his meal with relish and yet his face stayed morose. Maria wondered where the old Barney had gone, for this harsh, brusque man who’d returned from Dublin was like a stranger. Maybe it was the people he was mixing with that had changed him. He had always been swayed by his brother’s influence.

Barney finished his dinner, scraped back his chair, went across to the Sam’s bed and poured himself another generous glass of whiskey.

‘Hurry up,’ he said to Maria. ‘And don’t say you have a hundred and one things to do. Leave everything to the morning, for I want you in bed now.’

‘I’ll be up as soon as Sally has had her fill and has been changed,’ Maria said firmly. ‘She won’t settle if she isn’t full and neither would you if you went to bed
hungry, so don’t look at me like that. Why don’t you put the kettle on? I could do with a drink and don’t fancy whiskey, even if you had a mind to offer it.’

‘You’re a sarcastic bitch, Maria. You know that?’

‘For God’s sake, Barney, stop this griping and complaining.’ Maria said wearily. ‘Either put the kettle on, or hold the child for a minute while I do.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Barney said, putting the kettle on the range. ‘I’m not great with babies.’

Not even with your own, Maria might have said, but she didn’t. Barney at that moment was like an unexploded bomb and anything she said might set him off. She was too tired tonight for any more argument and hoped he’d be in a better and easier frame of mind in the morning.

The following day, when Barney seemed in a better temper, Maria said to him, ‘I think we should get the child christened as soon as possible, while Daddy is still with us.’

‘Hasn’t she already been christened?’ Barney said in surprise. Most Catholic children were christened when they were days, not months old.

‘I wouldn’t let her be until you came home,’ Maria said. ‘I had to fight the priest about it.’

‘I bet,’ Barney said. ‘But what is the rush now? Sam will hardly care or even be aware of it.’

‘He won’t be fit to go to the church, I know that,’ Maria said. ‘But he has mentioned it. He wants the baby to wear the christening gown and bonnet that I wore, and my mother, and my grandmother, way down the generations. Also, he wants to see Con as her godfather. He asks for so little in life, Barney, and always has. This might be the last thing we do for him.’

Barney knew Maria spoke the truth. He thought a great deal of Sam and would like to please him in this one thing. ‘It’d better be done quickly then,’ he said,
for Sam was sinking fast. ‘Who have you in mind for godmother?’ he asked with a grin. ‘Con’s wife, Brenda?’

Maria shuddered. ‘No fear,’ she said. ‘I am going to ask Dora and Bella. Father Flaherty will understand about speed. He knows how ill Daddy is. He pops in to see him most days.’

The priest did understand and the christening took place two days later in the afternoon. Few knew about it, so the only people in the church were those involved, and Con’s wife, who sat in the pew and stared at them all malevolently, furious that she hadn’t been asked to be godmother. Maria thought it a shabby affair altogether, and not the sort of christening she had imagined, but she knew it had pleased her father, so it had achieved some purpose.

The baby, affronted that some strange man was tipping water over her head, let out wails that filled the church as she was christened Sarah Mary, though Maria knew she would be known as Sally, at least while she was young. She smiled as she remembered some old woman telling her once that newly christened babies needed to cry to release the devil inside them, which Maria had always thought nonsense.

Sally was handed to Dora, who held her against her shoulder and rocked her soothingly until the sobs turned to hiccuping sniffles and then stopped altogether. Maria’s eyes met those of Dora over the child’s head and they exchanged smiles. Maria knew without her and Bella’s help and unfailing support she’d never have coped as well as she had. If she lived to be a hundred, she’d never be able to repay the debt she owed them.

There was no party back at the house, for Sam was
too ill for such a thing, but Maria had prepared food and provided beer and whiskey for the men, and sherry for any of the women that wanted it. Barney and Con sat by Sam’s side, drinking with him and talking together. Con even got Sam to eat a little food. Maria found it was hard to talk to Bella and Dora as she might have liked with Brenda sitting there, so conversation between them was stiff. Brenda, still angry with Maria, was barely polite anyway.

Maria was glad to draw the small gathering to a close when she saw Sam slumping back tiredly against the pillows.

‘Not much of a christening, this,’ Barney said to Con. He glanced at his watch. ‘The pubs will just about be open now. Fancy sinking a few at Raffety’s before we call it a day?’

Con looked towards his wife. Maria wondered what Con had ever seen in her. Brenda’s mouth, as usual, was like a thin slash of disapproval, her cheeks pinched in, as if she’d sucked a lemon. Her eyes were glittering with malice, especially when she cast them in Maria’s direction.

‘You’re going nowhere but home,’ she snapped to Con. ‘Get your coat.’

Con made a move as if to obey his wife and then stopped. He turned to Brenda and said, ‘The only place I am going is Raffety’s for another few beers, and you can like it or lump it.’

Brenda face was almost puce-coloured with temper. ‘You’ll come home now,’ she said through gritted teeth, ‘or the door will be locked and barred against you.’

Con smiled and said, ‘Thank you, Brenda, for informing
me of that. I shan’t bother my head coming home at all then if I won’t be able to get in. I’m sure someone will put me up for the night when I am ready to leave.’

Maria had the desire to cheer to see Con at last sticking up for himself, for Brenda had made his life hell for years.

After the christening, Sam seemed to go steadily downhill and Maria suggested letting Sean know how bad Sam was.