Anne Bennett - Pack Up Your Troubles

‘Here we go,’ Brendan said. ‘Always bloody complaining.’

‘Now, Brendan, let her have her say.’

Encouraged by this, Maeve said, ‘Whatever Brendan earns, I’m never given enough of it to feed the family.’

‘Is it my fault if she’s a bad manager?’ Brendan said, appealing to the priest.

‘A bad manager?’ Maeve exclaimed, and turning to Father Trelawney said, ‘Father, I don’t know exactly how much Brendan earns, but I know it’s more than adequate for our needs. I know because of the amount he tips down his neck each evening, but he throws a pittance on the table on a Friday if I’m lucky, and I have a lot to pay out of it. It’s never enough.’

‘She’s always bloody moaning on, Father,’ Brendan put in.

‘Let her finish,’ Father Trelawney said. ‘Go on, Maeve.’

‘Father,’ Maeve began, glad for once he appeared to be on her side, ‘our rent for this place is six and six. I then have to pay one and sixpence a week for the clothing club and ten shillings for other things besides food: soap, soap powder and soda, money for the gas meters, candles and coal for the winter. I should pay sixpence a week for the doctor but I never have it, but those are the basic things before the food I have to buy.’

Father Trelawney had been writing the figures down as Maeve spoke and he looked up at Brendan and said, ‘How much do you give Maeve each week?’

Maeve knew it was never a set amount she was given a week, only what she could manage to wheedle out of him, but she sat silent and waited for him to speak. He blustered at first and said, ‘Well, Father, it’s not so easy to say. Not just like that, you understand. I mean it’s up to what I have to pay up and what I’m due.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He means the gambling debts he runs up, Father,’ Maeve said. ‘And of course the little amount he wins back. Whether we all eat or not will often depend on how well the horses run.’

‘You bitch!’ Brendan cried, leaping to his feet, his fists balled by his side. He stabbed his finger in the air towards Maeve and appealed to the priest. ‘You see how she is, Father. She’s a sodding troublemaker – beg your pardon, Father.’

Father Trelawney spoke sternly: ‘Sit down, Brendan.’ And he waited till Brendan was seated before he went on, ‘From my reckoning the very least Maeve can manage on is three pounds ten shillings. Are you giving her that sort of money?’

Maeve gave a snort of disbelief. Sometimes she was hard-pressed to prise a pound note out of her husband. Brendan turned hate-filled eyes upon her and said, ‘A man has to have a drink, Father. You know in the job I have if you didn’t drink you’d die, and what harm is a wee bet?’

‘Jesus, Brendan, will you listen to yourself?’ Maeve cried, encouraged by the priest’s presence to speak at last. ‘You can drink the pubs dry for all I care if you’ll tip up your money before you go and spend what you have left. I don’t give a tuppenny damn what you do with the rest if you just give me enough to warm and light the house and feed everyone.’

‘Feed everyone!’ Brendan mocked. ‘You’ve no weans now. You’ve left them at your mother’s to spite me.’

‘There’s a war coming, in case you hadn’t noticed,’ Maeve said. ‘Our children are safer where they are. But I am pregnant again now and this one I want to give birth to and rear decently.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Work it out,’ Maeve snapped. ‘I miscarried two after Grace in the early months and then lost a baby at six months.’

‘Are you saying that was my fault?’

Maeve saw Brendan’s eyes glittering and knew she was on dangerous ground but was too angry to care. ‘Yes, I bloody well am. The first two were lost because I hadn’t the food in my body to feed them nor any resistance against the clouts and punches you seem to think are part of married life. But the last one,’ she added, ‘was lost because of a kick from a hobnail boot in my stomach.’

She stood up and faced Brendan, her face crimson with temper and yelled across the table, ‘You killed my unborn babies, Brendan Hogan, and near killed wee Kevin and me too. I returned to you only because I was forced. If anything happens to this child, I will hold Father Trelawney and Father O’Brien responsible for making me come back to you, and I’ve told Father O’Brien this.’

‘Maeve—’ Father Trelawney began.

‘Maeve bloody nothing, Father,’ Maeve snapped. ‘You don’t know how it is, neither of you priests does. I have to protect my children the only way I can.’

Brendan didn’t speak. But the glare he directed at her and the way he licked his lips slowly made her insides somersault in alarm. She closed her eyes, shutting out his face. Oh sweet Jesus, she cried silently, protect me for pity’s sake.

When she opened her eyes, Father Trelawney was regarding her gently. ‘Maeve, to lose a baby must be appalling and very sad for you, but you must believe your miscarriages were accidents – tragic accidents, but just that. To apportion blame will not help you.’

‘Apportion blame!’ Maeve repeated. ‘Father, I—’

But the priest cut her off. ‘Let’s return to the present and what can be done to help you both work towards a good marriage.’

Maeve stared at him, too angry to speak. Father Trelawney apparently was not going to talk about her miscarriages, nor agree that Brendan had had any hand in them at all. And as for the term ‘good marriage’, she’d stopped believing in that fantasy many years before. She didn’t expect happiness; just to be free of fear for the safety of her unborn baby, and have enough money to feed the family was all she desired now.

‘As I said before, I think Maeve should have three pounds and ten shillings a week,’ Father Trelawney said. ‘That will still leave you with a fair amount.’

Brendan gaped at him. ‘Three pounds bloody ten?’

Maeve looked at the priest in surprise. It wasn’t a fortune, but more than she’d ever got before, though she knew it wouldn’t happen. Brendan would agree to it, maybe, while the priest was there, but Father Trelawney wouldn’t be there on a Friday evening when Maeve risked a thumping to get some money off him before he left the house again to drink and gamble the night away. Often the amount he’d throw at her in the end was barely enough to clear the tick she’d run up in Mountford’s.

But Father Trelawney surprised her. ‘And I’d like you to bring it to the presbytery on Friday after work,’ he went on. ‘I’ll bring it up to Maeve myself later that evening.’

Maeve felt the breath leave her body in a large sigh of relief. Not to have to fight for money would be like heaven. Even when she’d managed to get some money out of Brendan, she’d often gone to bed light-headed and aching with hunger herself, for the little food she’d managed to buy she’d given to the children. To think all that might be over was magic indeed; to think she might carry her baby to term and as well nourished as any other in that area was a relief.

Maeve saw by Brendan’s glare that he was not pleased by what the priest said, but she knew he felt too awed by the clergy to go against him. ‘Do you agree, Brendan?’ the priest asked.

‘There’s no need for all this, Father.’

‘Well, we’ll see. But for now, do you agree?’

Brendan made an impatient movement with his head. ‘Aye, aye. I suppose so. You’ve forced it on me.’

‘And you, Maeve. Are you agreeable?’

‘Aye, Father. It would be a blessing, so it would.’

‘And why wouldn’t it?’ Brendan cut in sarcastically. ‘She takes off when the notion takes her and returns without a bone of shame in her body and makes demands. And you, Father, you encourage her and with not a word about how she’s behaved.’