Anne Bennett - Mother’s Only Child

It was Sam himself who was the most hesitant. Though he missed the fresh air and longed to go out, he was nervous.

‘It’s to be expected, Daddy,’ Maria said. ‘Even putting clothes on after all this time has got to be strange.’

The clothes Sam had once worn so comfortably now hung on his sparse frame. The effort of getting dressed, together with the fresh air, meant that the first outing wore Sam out so much it lasted only fifteen minutes. A week later it had risen to half an hour.

By then, Sam was the most enthusiastic of them all. He liked the chance to get out and about around the town, to be pushed to the pier or on the green and to look across the Foyle at the activity on the water and the docks. Sometimes he could hear and see the planes taking off. He also liked the chance to talk to people, to hear the news and gossip.

‘D’you know what I’d really like?’ he said to Maria that night after the first half-hour outing as she helped him into bed. ‘I’d like to go to the pub a time or two. D’you think Barney would take me with him some night?’

‘I don’t know that you would be able for that.’

‘Of course I would.’

Maria wasn’t at all keen and she couldn’t analyse why not. She asked herself, why shouldn’t her father go to the pub? It was a normal thing to do, for God’s sake. All the same she was glad her uncle was coming up the Friday that Barney had agreed to take Sam to the pub.

‘Keep an eye on him, Uncle Sean,’ she said as they were about to leave.

‘God, Maria, what d’you expect him to do? Dance naked up on the table?’

‘No.’

‘Well then, what is it?’

‘It’s silly, I know it is,’ Maria said. ‘It’s just that…look, Uncle Sean, Daddy hardly drank much before. He drank virtually nothing at all after the war started and before he began at the Derry boatyard, because he couldn’t afford it. But, well, he’s different now.’

‘A lot of things are different,’ Sean said gently. ‘Then he was a man, fit and well able to look after his family and put money on the table for anything needed—money to send his clever girl to college. What does he have now? I’m delighted Barney is taking him out each fine afternoon, but it’s still not much of a life, not compared to what he had. If he takes a drop too much and it helps him cope, can we blame him?’

‘No, no, of course not,’ Maria said. ‘I told you I was being silly.’

Despite the assurances Sean had given Maria, he’d been a little concerned to see the amount of hard stuff—whiskey and poteen—that Sam was drinking each night, certainly the weekends he’d been there. Sam had been a Guinness man, and that in moderation, but he supposed as Barney had begun to bring round the hard stuff there was nothing to do but drink it. He’d advise him to go easy tonight, though.

However, Sean was soon aware there were no words invented that could stop the drinks piled on Sam that night. It was his first foray into the pub since the accident and, as it was Friday, many of his old workmates were in there. Everyone wanted to clap him on the back and buy him a pint. Those workmates not there were sent for, and those passing in the street came into the pub on hearing Sam Foley was in there.

Rafferty’s had never done such trade. The noise, laughter, cigarette smoke and Guinness gave Sam back some of his pride, and when people sat beside him at the table, he was the same height as everyone else.

In the end, Sean had to hold Sam upright in the wheelchair while Barney pushed him home at just turned ten o’clock, for the man was very nearly comatose.

‘I couldn’t help it,’ Sean said to Maria when he saw her eyes flashing fire. ‘None of us could.’

‘It’s because it was his first time out,’ Barney said.

‘I had little myself,’ Sean said. ‘I’ll see to him, if you like. And I’m sure Barney here will stay for a cup of tea.’

‘No, no, I won’t, if you don’t mind,’ Barney said with a glance at the clock. ‘I said I’d meet Seamus later.’

When Barney let himself out, he slunk away in the shadows, down the hill and out of the town to the dark entry where Seamus was waiting in the lorry.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘I had to take Sam home,’ Barney said. ‘You mind I said I was taking him to the pub? I couldn’t leave him with Sean. He couldn’t sit upright even. Talk about legless.’

‘I’ll give you legless if you don’t get in this sodding lorry and quick,’ Seamus said, revving the engine as Barney leapt in. ‘Ten o’clock we’re supposed to start from here. You know this all boils down to timing. Can’t have them hanging about waiting for stuff.’

‘OK, I know,’ Barney said. ‘And I am sorry. It was his first night, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Filled that full of booze, it might be his last,’ Seamus said, and added callously, ‘Get him home for half-nine in future. It’s late enough for a cripple like him to be out anyway.’

‘That’s a bloody awful thing to say, Seamus.’

‘Look, Sonny Jim,’ Seamus snarled, ‘we’re not running a charity. This is how we live and I don’t see you complaining when you get your cut.’

‘No…‘

‘Well, then. Do what you like with whoever you like, but be here on bloody time or else.’

Barney knew what the ‘else’ meant. He’d been on the receiving end of it enough times and even now, fully grown as he was, he was frightened of his brother. ‘OK, OK. Keep your bloody hair on.’

‘As long as we get it straight,’ Seamus said grimly and he let out the throttle and the lorry roared through the back roads on its way to Derry.

‘Haven’t you sweetened up that girl enough to go out with you yet?’ Seamus asked Barney towards the end of June. ‘You’ve spent enough time with the father.’

‘I don’t take Sam out because of Maria,’ Barney said. ‘I did at first, but not now.’ Sam’s first trip to the pub was not his last and now he usually went once or twice a week. If Sean wasn’t there to take Sam home, Barney would deliver him to the door no later than a quarter to ten. He would never come in, claiming he had business with his brother.

‘Well, is she nicer to you because of it?

‘She’s pleasant enough, but then she’s always been pleasant,’ Barney said.

‘She’s had time and enough to get over lover boy, surely to God.’

Barney wondered if she’d ever get over him. The whole experience had changed her. There had used to be a gaiety about her, the liveliness of youth, but that was gone now. She was still incredibly thin and Barney often saw her looking pensive, her eyes glittering with unshed tears.

However, he thought Seamus was right. He should bite the bullet and ask her out. What had he to lose? Anyway, how could she hope to get over Greg when she had nothing and no one to put in his place? Derry had plenty of cinemas, and he was sure she’d love to see Springtown Camp, where many of the Americans were based.

Maria, in fact, knew all about it, for the girls at the factory had told her and she’d seen pictures and reports on it in the paper. The like of it had never been seen in Derry before. It was all landscaped, with circular areas of grass broken up with concrete roads leading to the centre circle, where on the flag pole the Stars and Stripes fluttered. There was also a library, barber’s shop, laundry, theatre and canteen complex that doubled as a dance hall. Soda fountains and an ice-cream machine were installed inside.

‘God, Maria, if you go nowhere else in your life, go and have a peep at that place,’ Joanne had said to her one day. ‘Jesus, it’s like something out of the movies.’

‘Have you been to any of the dances?’ Maria asked. ‘Just last week there was a big feature about them in the paper.’