Anne Bennett - Mother’s Only Child

When they arrived home, it was to find her father fast asleep and Dora dozing in the chair. Maria’s conscience smote her. Dora and her daughter had been so supportive, she felt she’d never be able to repay the debt. Without them, not only would she not have got out tonight, but she’d not have been able to work and what would they have done then? No one can live on fresh air.

Gently, she shook Dora awake. ‘Do you want a cup of tea, or do you want to go straight home?’ she asked as Dora struggled to sit up straighter, her eyes still heavy with sleep.

‘Tell you the truth, Maria, I need my bed more than a drink,’ she said.

‘I’ll walk home with you,’ Barney said.

‘It’s just down the street. What d’you think would happen me?’

‘Well, I’m leaving anyway, aren’t I?’ Barney said, casting an eye in Maria’s direction. She knew she should offer him a drink of some such, say it was no bother, insist even, but she was too weary to play those sort of games and so she said, ‘If you don’t mind, Barney. I’m tired too.’

The flash of disappointment was gone in an instant. ‘Did you enjoy tonight?’

‘I did very much,’ Maria said sincerely. ‘Thank you for taking me.’

‘No problem,’ Barney said. ‘Maybe we can do it again, sometime?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Like next week?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Maria said. ‘That doesn’t just depend on me.’

‘If it’s me you are thinking of, Maria,’ Dora said, ‘then don’t. I can doze by your fireside as easy as I can by my own and everyone has to get out now and again.’

In the end a pattern was established and over the next few weeks, until the summer was passed and the autumn’s nip in the air, Maria and Barney saw The Thief of Baghdad, The Philadelphia Story, Dumbo, and Mrs Miniver. They’d also been out to dinner once, to a theatre in Derry to see Fanny By Gaslight, and once just to the pub, where they’d talked all evening and found out a lot about each other. After each date, unusually for her, Maria would tell Joanne all about it.

Joanne was delighted that Maria, at last, was beginning to live a little. She had been very concerned about that business with the other boy that Maria had once seemed crazy about. She had said they had decided to cool it till after the war, and that was all well and good, but then she never mentioned his name again, as if he had disappeared off the face of the earth. When once Joanne, intrigued, had asked about him, Maria’s eyes filled with tears and so she never asked again. Maria also seemed to have lost any of the gaiety she once had and seemed instead to be engulfed in misery. Joanne felt you could almost reach out and touch the sadness wrapped around her like a cloak.

Joanne knew Maria had been hurt, and badly, and had sincerely hoped that the experience hadn’t put her off men for life. That would be a tragedy altogether. But she was fine now. Here she was, going with another strapping chap, by all accounts, and one she had known for years. He had been once employed by her father too, and her father fully approved of him.

‘Do you love him?’ Joanne asked.

Maria hesitated. She didn’t love Barney like she had Greg, when just to whisper his name would fill her with joy and cause her heart to stop beating for a second or two, when she’d long to feel his arms around her, his lips on hers and the rapturous feelings they induced in her, especially when Greg’s hands had explored her body.

She had not wanted or invited such intimacy with Barney. ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘But I don’t think so. We don’t…you know.’

‘Kiss? You don’t kiss?’

‘We don’t do anything.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘No. I don’t really want to.’

‘And he puts up with it?’ exclaimed Joanne. ‘God, I didn’t think they made them like that any more. I’ve never met any. You’ve got yourself a gentleman, Maria. But be careful—even gentlemen have their limits of patience.’

Maria thought long and hard about what Joanne said. Even if she didn’t love Barney, she didn’t want the outings with him to stop. It was the only light relief she had. She now looked forward to their weekends and had begun to laugh again. She knew, though, that if she wanted to continue to go out with Barney she had to start being fairer towards him.

It was as they were leaving the cinema the following Saturday, after seeing Pinocchio, that Barney said, ‘There’s a dance next week at Springtown Camp.’

Maria couldn’t help smiling. Joanne would give her eyeteeth to be in my shoes just now, she thought, because as yet she hadn’t been to one of the dances there. But how could she, Maria, go to a dance? She hadn’t the clothes, and even if she had, she didn’t know how to dance properly. So she said, ‘I haven’t danced for years. Anyway, they’ll hardly be playing the music for a jig or the odd hornpipe.’

‘No, they won’t,’ Barney conceded.

‘Well, I don’t know how to do anything else, waltz, foxtrot and all,’ Maria said.

‘There isn’t much of that either,’ Barney said. ‘By all accounts it’s mainly jitterbugging.’

‘Jitterbugging! What the hell is jitterbugging?’

‘The new craze sweeping America, if you believe all you read in the papers,’ Barney said. ‘Do you want to go?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’

‘Just for a look,’ Barney said. ‘Go on, Maria, say you’ll go. I haven’t seen jitterbugging either. I’d like to know what the fuss is all about.’

Maria couldn’t see Barney’s face in the blackout, but she heard the pleading in his voice and she felt sorry for him. He turned up every week, regular as clockwork, to take her to the cinema, to see something she chose, and she never gave anything back. A few times, he’d tried to hold her hand and she’d pulled away. Each time he’d left her at the door and she’d gone inside, while he’d walked home with Dora. He’d never complained to her, though she’d seen the disappointment in his eyes. Surely she could do this one little thing for him? ‘If you want then.’

‘If you don’t like it, we don’t have to stay.’

‘No, all right,’ Maria said. ‘I expect I will like it well enough when I get there.’ She reached for his hand as she spoke and heard Barney’s sharp intake of breath as their hands met. It was surprisingly how comforting it was to have her hand held by a strong man’s, Maria thought, and as they made their way to the bus stop, Barney’s heart was lighter than it had been for ages.

That night, Barney was asked in and Dora made her way home alone, waving away Barney’s offer of help. ‘Not in my dotage yet, and don’t you forget it,’ she said.

Barney’s grin at Dora’s words took Maria by surprise. Barney was a handsome man, she’d always thought, but she hadn’t seen him as desirable. For all they’d been out together, she hadn’t counted them as dates. She’d never had the slightest interest in Barney that way. After Greg she thought she’d never feel that way for anyone again. Now it was quite reassuring to find she wasn’t dead inside, but had just been deeply asleep.

Barney too felt the easing of tension in Maria and accepted the tea she gave him. But he was careful not to push it, not to outstay his welcome. When he drew her into his arms to kiss her good night, she went willingly, and when his kisses became more ardent, she didn’t pull away, but responded.

He felt as if he was walking on air that night as he made his way home.

Maria was quite shocked by jitterbugging at first. It seemed too vibrant, the movements, such as they were, done in an almost abandoned manner. The place was, of course, dripping with Americans. Maria had come across many in Derry, but as she dressed in workday clothes, usually with her hair covered by a turban, she’d never had more than a cursory glance.