Anne Bennett - Pack Up Your Troubles

‘You will not, Brendan,’ she said firmly. ‘I couldn’t bear it.’

Brendan laughed at her. He’d had no intention of offering himself, but liked to see Maeve’s concern.

Maeve didn’t like the poor ragged men selling a variety of things from trays around their necks. ‘Old lags from the last war,’ Brendan told her, but he wouldn’t let Maeve dwell on their poor existence or buy their razor blades or matches. He steered her instead towards the man with the piano accordion, and they joined in with others singing the popular songs.

That evening Maeve had her first taste of whelks when Brendan bought her a dish. She wasn’t sure she really liked them, but thought they were better than the slimy jellied eels that Brendan chose.

Brendan put his arm round Maeve, amused at her delight in everything, and as she smiled up at him he felt as if he’d been hit by a sledgehammer in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t know if it was love or not, he just knew he wanted Maeve more than he’d wanted anything in his life before.

They stayed at the Bull Ring until the Salvation Army band marched in blowing bugles and trumpets, and singing hymns with great gusto. Maeve was amazed how many stood and listened and even joined in some hymns, and when the Salvation Army left, they had tramps and some of the old lags in tow.

‘Where are they taking them?’ she asked Brendan.

‘To the Citadel,’ he replied. ‘They’ll give them thick soup and bread, and try and find some of them a bed for the night.’

Maeve was moved by that. She’d never met people of different religions, or of no religion at all, before she’d come to Birmingham, but she thought those in the Salvation Army must be good, kind people and brave to go about in their strange costumes risking ridicule.

‘Come on,’ Brendan said. ‘The only one in your head should be me, my darling girl, and certainly not those down-and-outs. My throat’s as dry as dust and I want a drink.’

Maeve didn’t very much like the pub to which Brendan took her, but she quite liked the port and lemon he bought her. In fact she liked it so much she drank it down almost at once and Brendan smiled at her.

‘It’s not pop, you know. Treat it with care.’

Maeve remembered the brandy she’d had on the boat and how the Irish woman had said something similar. ‘I’m not used to alcohol,’ she said.

‘Well, that’s obvious,’ Brendan said. ‘I’ll buy you another and you sip it this time.’

Maeve did sip it, but the unaccustomed drink made her feel peculiar and a little giggly, and as they made their way to the tram, she confessed to Brendan that her head felt swimmy. Brendan was pleased; he wanted Maeve in a compliant mood that night.

The café was in darkness and there wasn’t a soul about as they stole up the stairs to Maeve’s flat, and once inside Brendan pulled Maeve on to the settee beside him. Suddenly it didn’t matter to Maeve that Brendan hadn’t asked her to marry him. He would, she was sure, in time, and until then . . . After all, he’d been so kind to her and so generous. She didn’t repel Brendan’s groping fingers, nor the kisses that she seemed to be drowning in.

But then at the last moment she pulled back and Brendan let out a howl of agony. He felt as if his crotch would explode and he knew by Maeve’s wild eyes and breathlessness that she wanted it as much as he did. No pleading would shift her, and Brendan thought of taking her by force, but knew it would destroy everything between them if he did.

But Maeve too had been shaken and was frustrated and unhappy. It was getting harder and harder to refuse Brendan when she wanted it so much herself. She’d never in her life felt the hot shafts of desire that Brendan induced in her and knew that eventually she would give in to him.

Brendan knew it too, but he didn’t know how long it could take to break Maeve from her upbringing and the moral confines of the Church, and wasn’t at all sure he could last out that long. However, despite his deep desire for Maeve, he’d had no intention on God’s earth of marrying her in the beginning.

He’d had no intention of marrying anyone. He’d never known a happy marriage – certainly his own parents’ had been no advertisement for blissful contentment. All his brothers had gone down the same road and he’d seen the lifeblood squeezed out of them with their demanding wives and houses full of screaming brats. He had no use for children.

He was the eldest in his family and each child his mother had had after him had meant less attention for himself. He’d felt further and further pushed away as the younger ones got what care and love there might be, though there was precious little of either.

There had been no time at all for his father either. His mother just seemed to regard him as a walking pay packet. She’d never been satisfied with the amount he’d given her every Friday night. Small wonder, Brendan thought, his father had felt the need to smack her about now and then. Brendan had certainly seen no harm in it. She was a moaning bloody nag, like most women, and he agreed with his father that they all needed teaching a lesson a time or two. A man had to be master in his own house.

He’d decided long ago that he’d share his money with no woman. He worked for it and he’d choose how it was to be spent. Brendan was the only one left at home. His mother cooked his meals and washed and ironed for him, and he paid keep, which she was always bloody grateful for. He always had enough left to buy as many fags as he wanted, a bellyful of beer as often as he liked and to place a bet if he had the mind to. He thought his brothers fools and saw marriage as a trap.

He didn’t live like a monk either. He had plenty of money to jingle in his pocket and buy drinks for those willing to please him, and he found there were women enough to accommodate him if he was that way inclined. He used to boast he’d never had to pay for sex. After a good night out most were only too grateful for a bit of slap and tickle, and Brendan always admitted to it later in confession and got absolution. He saw no reason for his life to change. That was until he met Maeve Brannigan.

That night, with his whole body on fire, he faced the fact that to have Maeve he had to marry her, for his need for her had got between him and his reason. And so he proposed.

Maeve was ecstatic that the man she adored, loved more than life itself, had asked her to marry him and soon they could love each other totally and fully as they both longed to.

However, Maeve’s parents didn’t want their daughter marrying a man they’d never seen, especially as she was under age. In desperation, Maeve turned to her uncle. Michael knew Brendan, had known him for years because they attended the same church and drank in the same pub when Michael ever had the money and Aggie’s permission to do so. He thought Brendan Hogan a grand man altogether, but because Maeve seldom went near them he had not been aware that his niece was even seeing him.

He knew Brendan had a bit of a reputation with a certain type of woman, but he told himself there was no harm in that – many young men sowed their wild oats until they met the girl they wanted to marry. He wrote and told Maeve’s parents Brendan was a good fellow altogether and would make Maeve a grand husband, and wasn’t he not only a good Catholic, but as Irish as themselves and from County Clare? Reassured and relieved they gave their blessing.

Brendan knew there were ways of preventing pregnancies, for at the pubs he’d met many old lags, veterans of the Great War, who had told him about it. Not that the rubber sheaths they wore were necessarily to prevent pregnancy, but rather the clap that the French prostitutes seemed riddled with. But they would prevent pregnancy too, and that’s what he was interested in. He wanted Maeve all to himself and not just for the tiny morsels of time that were all she’d have left for him if she had a houseful of weans to attend to.