Anne Bennett - Pack Up Your Troubles

Maeve was quiet for a moment and then she said, ‘At first, at the very beginning, I used to get the feeling that somehow I deserved what was happening to me. That I must have done something wrong, or Brendan wouldn’t have been so angry with me. I never felt that way, though, when he was hitting Kevin. Then I just felt angry, but for myself . . . Elsie said I was a fool, and that he’d kill me in the end, but I was so scared of him by then, I couldn’t think straight.’

‘Oh, my dear girl.’

Maeve hadn’t been aware she was crying until her mother spoke. She scrubbed at her eyes impatiently and went on, ‘It’s all right, Mammy. I’m fine now. Let me tell you everything before Daddy is back, and you can then let him know what you see fit. You see, it was the first miscarriage when I realised I truly hated and despised the man I’d once loved so much. I felt sad about it too; it felt like a failure. I’d imagined Brendan and I would have such a rosy future ahead of us.

‘Before we married and even in the first few months while we lived above the café and before I fell pregnant with Kevin, we were happy. So when he lashed out at me at first, I felt that in some way I deserved it. It seems crazy now, Mammy, but I hadn’t realised anyone could change so much. And then he was always so sorry in the beginning. He always begged me to forgive him and promised it wouldn’t happen again. It was when I became pregnant with Grace that I had the first bad beating from him and after that, he never bothered to apologise any more.’

She looked up at her mother and saw that her mother’s eyes were brimming with tears. ‘You must think I was stupid, Mammy.’

‘God love you, not at all, at all,’ Annie told Maeve, her voice husky with emotion and she clasped one of her daughter’s hands in her own and held it tight. ‘Go on, pet.’

Maeve sighed. ‘After that, Mammy, I knew I’d married a bully and that was going to be the pattern of my life from then on, and fear had sort of taken over from love. But God, Mammy, when I lost the first baby – you mind, I wrote and told you about the two miscarriages early on?’

‘Aye. I was heartsore for you, so I was.’

‘Mammy, I lost those babies after a good hiding from Brendan,’ Maeve said. ‘I wasn’t eating properly either because there was so little food in the house. The first time he hadn’t known I was pregnant and I lay in bed, knowing there was no longer a baby growing inside me and I felt useless. I could do nothing about my own life and couldn’t even protect my unborn child. I not only feared Brendan, but I also realised I hated him.

‘Then I lost another at three months, in much the same way as the first, but this time Brendan knew I was pregnant and concentrated his attack on my stomach and seemed almost satisfied when I miscarried. The last one I lost because of a vicious kick in the stomach that I got from trying to protect Kevin. Then, with me out of action, because he’d nearly knocked me senseless – I still have the scars from the hobnails on my stomach – he really took it out of the child. He beat him black and blue. I think he might have beaten him to death that night if Elsie hadn’t come in. She got the doctor in and he sent for an ambulance for me.’

‘God, child, this is terrible,’ Annie said, greatly distressed. ‘And for you to tell not a soul . . .’

‘I was ashamed,’ Maeve said. ‘I don’t know what of, either. It wasn’t me should have been ashamed. When the doctors asked me about the boot-shaped bruise on my stomach, I told them I’d fallen over the fireguard. They didn’t believe me, but I stuck to my story. Then, when I missed my period again this month, I knew I had to get away. Can we stay, Mammy, till I get myself sorted out?’

Maeve saw her mother was moved by what she’d told her, but she also knew her mother didn’t really want her there. You married for better or worse, richer or poorer, and that was how some would see it, regardless of what the woman had to endure. Her mother wouldn’t turn her away, Maeve knew that, but in the same circumstances many would, and would tell Annie so. By receiving her daughter, Maeve knew Annie would lose face in the small community and that mattered to her.

But Maeve knew she mattered more. She’d always been assured of her mother’s love and support, and she knew she’d not turn her back on her or the children.

And Annie could not, after all she’d heard, refuse them a place of refuge. She’d seen the lines of suffering on her daughter’s white, gaunt face, and had been shocked by the sight of her grandchildren, pitifully thin and pasty-faced, and knew whatever it cost, they were welcome in her home.

She held out her arms and cradled Maeve as she hadn’t done since she was a child. ‘Why, child, of course you can stay here and for as long as you like,’ she said. ‘Where else would you come but home? And as for your father and the others, leave them to me. I’ll tell them what I think fit.’

Tears of gratitude ran down Maeve’s cheeks and she held her mother tight. Years later she could still remember the comfort her mother’s arms and words had been.

SIX

It was just as her mother said it would be. The family all accepted her. Only her father spoke of it. ‘I’m sorry for your trouble, Maeve,’ he said, ‘but you’re home now and you’re safe.’

‘Thanks, Daddy,’ Maeve said, and her eyes filled with tears at his words. She wondered that she hadn’t come home sooner, but then she hadn’t the wherewithal before, that was why. But her conscience troubled her because she had two children with her and was expecting another. She couldn’t expect her parents to keep them and she decided she’d look round for a job to provide for them herself.

But when she spoke to her mother about it Annie had been adamant that if Maeve was determined to look for a job then she wasn’t to do so until after the baby was born. ‘You’re not fit for anything, the state you’re in,’ she said. ‘You’re skin and bone. You need feeding up and making healthy.’

Her father said more: ‘I’ll not have a pregnant daughter of mine go out to work, as if I hadn’t the means to keep her. When I need help to feed and clothe my own flesh and blood I’ll let you know.’

Maeve didn’t pursue the issue. The shock of what she’d done had got to her anyway, and she was worn out with it all. A peculiar lassitude seemed to affect her those first few days at the cottage as she was expected to do so little.

Elsie’s letter jolted her back into life and reminded her that Brendan was only half a day’s journey away. Elsie told Maeve that Brendan had been round to her house the first evening, as they’d thought he would, demanding to know where his wife and children were, but Elsie said she’d acted dumb and said she had no idea.

He didn’t believe me, of course, and if Alf hadn’t been by my side I wouldn’t have fancied my chances with him. He was that mad, he was shaking with it, and his face was nearly purple. I tell you the truth, Maeve, if you’d walked down the road at that minute, he would surely have killed you. Anyroad, he left me and went round a few of the other neighbours, but of course no one knew anything – you were right to keep it all to yourself. He went out, to the pub I suppose or else your uncle’s place. Anyroad, I didn’t see him come home again that night. I haven’t seen him since either. Trudy Gaskins, her that lives up the entry, said he’s moved into his mother’s place on the Pershore Road. She was up there the other night, because her daughter lives in the same road, and was on her time. She was with her all night and the next morning as she was getting ready to go home, she saw Brendan leaving his mother’s door.