Anne Bennett - Mother’s Only Child

Joanne made a face. ‘I haven’t, worse luck. I would bite the hand off anyone who offered to take me there, though.’

‘What’s stopping you just turning up?’

‘Well, that’s just it. You see, all girls have to be accompanied by a man,’ Joanne said. ‘And I haven’t got one at the present moment, not anyone permanent. I’m more like playing the field. Anyway, I think it is one of the stupidest rules in the world. Think of all those homesick Americans I could be such a comfort to, if I could just get past the bloody sentry.’

‘You’ve tried, haven’t you?’ Maria cried, knowing Joanne well. ‘You have actually tried to get in?’

Joanne grinned. ‘Aye, I did,’ she said. ‘It was just the once and I didn’t go on my own. I was with a couple of friends and we had fortified ourselves first with a few gin and tonics. Anyway, this beefy Yank sent us away with a flea in our ears. How we’ve laughed about it since.’

But, despite Joanne’s endorsement, when Barney asked Maria she said she had no desire to see Springtown Camp either now or in the future, and no thank you she didn’t want to go to the cinema either.

‘You go nowhere,’ he complained.

‘I don’t want to go anywhere.’

‘Maria…‘

‘Leave me alone, Barney, please.’ She laid a hand on his arm. ‘You’re a good man, Barney, kind and considerate to Daddy. Concentrate your efforts there—they’d be better received—because I am fit company for no one.’

‘Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?’

‘No, really, Barney. I’m fine as I am.’

She wasn’t. He knew it and so did Bella McFee. A month later she also had a go at Maria.

‘Your father has a better social life than you.’

It was true. As well as going out to the pub on Friday and Saturday nights, where Sam would meet again with all his mates, Barney had started taking him for a few jars after their afternoon walk too. Maria wasn’t aware of this straight away, and even when Barney mentioned it she said nothing. She knew her father was probably drinking far more than was good for him, but he was happier in himself and looked forward to his excursions.

‘You’re not still pining for that Greg boy?’ Bella asked.

‘What if I am?’

‘It’s madness, girl. It’s been over four months now.’

‘I know just how long it is, thank you.’

‘Rumour is his wife had a little girl; calls her Annabel.’

That hurt. Hurt like a knife in the heart. That Nancy had her man for her own and now she had a child by him. She had to stop this, get a grip on herself.

‘How do people get to know these things?’ she forced herself to say.

‘You mind me telling you Maureen Kelsey has a daughter lives in a place called Aston in Birmingham. She saw them first at Mass. Course, it was Greg she recognised and he introduced his wife. She saw at once she was carrying, like, and then she saw her at the grocer’s getting her rations and she had the wee one in the pram.’ She shook her head and went on, ‘I thought him such a decent, honest man—I never dreamt he’d do that to you. Betray you that way.’

‘He didn’t,’ Maria said, ‘not really. That business with Nancy was long over.’

‘So he says.’

‘He was telling the truth, Bella. I’d have known if he was lying. And when the girl found herself pregnant, what could he do but marry her?’

‘Well, she’s having to cope without him now,’ Bella went on. ‘because she was telling Maureen’s daughter she thinks he’s in North Africa. No one’s absolutely clear. You must forget him, girl, and I know that’s easier said than done, but if you were to go out a time or two, you might find it a little easier.’

‘You sound like Barney.’

‘Barney?’

‘Yes. He’s at me to go out too.’

‘With him?’

‘Aye,’ Maria said, and added with a wry smile, ‘Hardly on my own.’

Bella had her own views on Barney McPhearson and they were the same as her mother’s, and yet, well, it wasn’t as if Maria was overburdened with offers and in some cases it was better the devil you know. ‘Why don’t you go then?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Maria, you really can’t go on like this,’ Bella said sternly. ‘You’ll make yourself ill and it’s upsetting your daddy.’

Maria knew Bella was right about that. Her daddy was worried about her, convinced he was spoiling her life and wouldn’t rest about it, however much she tried to reassure him.

‘You think I should go out with Barney?’

‘Well, it would do no harm,’ Bella said. ‘Do you like him?’

‘Bella, I don’t know what I feel,’ Maria cried. ‘It’s like I’m dead and shrivelled up inside. But I suppose I like Barney well enough.’

‘Good God, girl!’ Bella exclaimed. ‘You’re too young to be shrivelled anywhere. And if you like Barney well enough, that’s a start. Go out with him, for heaven’s sake, before you crumple into a heap of dust.’

Barney had negotiated with his brother to have Friday and Saturday nights free and took Maria to see Fantasia the following Saturday evening. Though Barney had thought it in the nature of a proper date, he didn’t think that Maria saw it that way at all. He told himself it was something that she had agreed to go over the doorstep with him at all and he knew he had to proceed with caution.

Before Maria left that evening, she’d sat down beside her father and held his hand. Once his face had been as ruddy as Sean’s through being out in all weathers, but now Sam’s face was pale and the skin slack so that it lay in folds. His eyes were rheumy, but still full of love for Maria. When he told her he was happy that she’d agreed to go out with Barney at last, she knew he meant it.

‘You’ll have to forgo the pub tonight.’

‘Aye, it’ll do me no harm.’

‘No harm indeed,’ Maria replied with asperity.

‘Ah, Maria, forgive my little weakness,’ Sam said. ‘It’s all the pleasure I have left now and it helps me cope.’

Maria immediately felt guilty. ‘Shall I run over to Rafferty’s for a couple of bottles of Guinness?’ she said. ‘I’ll have time before the bus.’

‘No,’ Sam said. ‘I have a bottle of better stuff,’ and he drew a bottle of poteen from under the covers.

‘Where did you get that?’ Maria asked, surprised.

‘Barney brought it in earlier.’

Maria sighed, but said not a word more. Instead, she gave him a glass and went up to get ready.

‘You look a picture, Maria,’ Sam said, when she came back into the room.

‘You’re biased,’ she replied with a smile, ‘and your brain’s addled with poteen. Listen, now, Mammy is asleep and Dora will be in directly. I’ll knock the door as I pass.’

‘Yes, yes. I’ll be all right. Don’t fret. Get yourself away.’

‘I will, in a minute.’

Just then there was a knock at the door. ‘That’ll be him,’ Sam said. ‘Don’t keep him waiting.’

Maria was impressed by Barney’s appearance. He was wearing the suit he wore to Mass. His shirt was pristine white and not creased. His shoes were highly polished and she smelt the Brylcreem and knew he’d tried to curb his unruly curls, but not terribly successfully.

However well Barney looked, though, Maria was convinced she was making a mistake in agreeing to go out with him at all. Her stiffness and stance told Barney quite clearly that she would reject any move towards greater intimacy and so he didn’t even try to put an arm around her shoulder, or hold her hand as they made their way to the bus stop Then she’d sat beside him in the bus as if she was a lump of wood.

It was slightly better when they got to the cinema. Although Maria did hold her body away from him pointedly at first, she did relax more as she began to enjoy the film. It was by the American, Walt Disney, whom everyone seemed to be talking about. Maria thought that if her opinion had been asked before she had seen it she would have said she wouldn’t be interested in it at all. With all the animation and such, it sounded like something for weans surely. However, she found herself fascinated by it. She was glad it was as unlike the films she’d seen when she was with Greg as it was possible to be.