Mother’s Only Child

‘Wait,’ Maria said, seeming to know her way around the dim room, the light of the day, such as it was, hardly penetrating through the one small window.

Maria lit both a paraffin lamp and a stove, and then she wrapped her arms around Greg. ‘Keep your coat on for a while,’ she advised, ‘till the room warms up a bit. Then,’ she added impishly, ‘we can take off as much as you’d like.’ She clapped her hand to her mouth in horror at the realisation of what she had said.

‘Maria!’

‘Oh, Greg, how dreadful to come out with something like that,’ she cried. ‘You must be shocked, think me brazen. I don’t know what came over me.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Greg cried, putting down his case thankfully against an upended boat. The ground was littered with coils of rope and the room smelt of engine oil.

Maria produced two chairs and passed one over to Greg. ‘Sit down, darling, and tell me what’s on your mind,’ she said. ‘I can tell there’s something.’

Now they were here, in this ideal place, isolated and alone, Greg didn’t know how to start. He’d rehearsed it enough times. He’d travelled through the night, on train and mail boat, more trains and the bus to get here in the least time possible, but while it was one thing to rehearse his story cold, as if the tale was of someone else entirely, it was quite another to sit and look into the eyes of his beloved and tell it.

‘Shall I make some tea?’ Maria said suddenly. ‘There’s always some things kept in the cupboard in the kitchen place and I could boil the kettle on the stove, though I’m not sure if there’s milk?’

Did he want tea? He didn’t know. Would tea help the cold, dead feeling inside him? ‘That would be nice,’ he found himself saying.

So Maria busied herself and found milk that the cold weather had kept fresh. She asked no questions till the tea was made and poured, biscuits laid on a plate. Then she said, ‘Now, tell me?’

Scalding as it was, Greg took a gulp of the tea, hoping it might steady his nerves. It didn’t and he swallowed deeply before saying, ‘This is hard for me, Maria, so hard. Before I realised that you felt as I had felt for years, that we’re as one, in love, I went out with another. A girl called Nancy Dempsey.’

So that was it. In seconds, Maria was out of her seat and on her knees before Greg. She held his hands in hers and said, ‘Greg, darling, I don’t care about your past. You could have had a hundred girls and I’d not be a whit interested in any one of them. What I care about is here and now, you and me and our future together.’

‘But that’s it!’ Greg cried desperately. ‘We have no future together.’

He watched as the realisation of his words took hold, sank into Maria’s mind. He saw the blood drain from her face, leaving it as white as lint, her eyes two pools of confused pain. ‘What…what do you mean, Greg? What…what are you saying? Please, please don’t say these hurtful things.’

Greg knew Maria was having difficulty even breathing.

And her eyes…Oh God. He closed his own, but it didn’t help. He still saw her look of betrayal. ‘Dear Christ,’ he cried, ‘do you think I want to say such things? Enjoy hurting you, hurting myself this way?’

‘Then why…?’

‘Listen,’ Greg said. Maria had snatched her hands away and he took hold of them again, massaging her fingers with his own as he went on, ‘I would willingly give my life in exchange for yours and think it an honour. You are the first and last person I will ever love, for I will never, ever feel this way again. And yet, Maria, I must marry another.’

Maria gave a cry and snatched her hands away. One hand was before her mouth, the other folded around her chest as she sat down in the chair. Pain such as she’d never experienced before filled her body and she felt her heart—the heart she’d given to Greg—shatter into a million pieces.

‘I have no choice,’ Greg cried helplessly. ‘Nancy carries my child.’

Now she understood. Greg, her Greg, had to be given to another. ‘She is already five months gone,’ Greg said, anxious that Maria knew it had been over before they declared their love for one another, before that first leave in October. ‘And she’d had to be beaten quite severely before she would tell her father my name.’ Maria seemed incapable of speech, so Greg went on, ‘It is mine, Maria. I cannot deny it and I cannot desert her. What life would she have if I did that?’

Maria knew everything Greg said was true. The facts were like little hammers battering inside her head.

‘Do you hate me, Maria?’

‘I feel nothing for you,’ Maria said flatly. ‘My heart is broken.’

‘I know,’ Greg said. ‘And mine too. Saying I am sorry is so inadequate, but I am sorry. You’d not believe how sorry I am. And though I must stand by Nancy and give her and the child my name, she will never have my love, or my heart. That belongs to you.’

Maria looked at Greg and wondered if he thought that made a difference. There was no point in talking any more. The talking was over now; to prolong it was pointless.

‘I think you should leave,’ she said, amazed by the controlled way she could say that, when inside she felt she’d been turned to jelly.

‘I can’t just leave you here.’

‘You can’t not,’ Maria said. ‘What I do is no longer your concern and I want you to go, now.’

‘Maria, please…’

Maria leapt to her feet. ‘Get out!’ she screamed. ‘God damn you. Get out! I don’t want you here, or to ever see your face again. Now get out!’

Greg stood up and lifted his case. He knew he had no option but to go. ‘Goodbye, Maria.’

Maria tossed her head, but did not acknowledge him in any other way. She was holding on to herself with great difficulty and barely had the door shut on him that she gave a great sigh. Her limbs were shaking uncontrollably. She had the urge to throw things—anything, everything. She wanted to scream at the unfairness of life.

Twice a tantalising future had been held before her and twice it had been pulled away before she could sample it. She thought she’d grieved for the college place, her father’s accident, her mother’s collapse, but it wasn’t grieving like this—this devastating hurt flowing through her, the feeling that she was bare, exposed, for all to see.

She sank onto the floor, unable any longer to stay upright, and cried out all the anguish and pain, cried as if she’d never, ever stop. Eventually, she was quiet. She lay for a few moments longer before pushing herself into a sitting position and then getting to her feet groggily. She felt light-headed and she held on to the chair till the room stopped spinning around her. The future was like a bad taste in her mouth and she was in despair.

But there were still her parents to see to. She knew she must go on. She’d already left her father unattended for far too long. She didn’t know the time, had no idea how long she had been there, but the paraffin lamp was spluttering and the fire in the stove much lower than it had been.

It was time to go, time to face the world. Maria put the biscuits away and threw the tea down the sink. She could go and tell the people of Moville of Greg’s betrayal, then take on board their pitying looks and sidelong glances. No, by God, she’d not, she vowed. Pride was all she had left now and she wasn’t losing one vestige of it.

Who knew anything about her and Greg anyway? Maria pondered as she made her way home. She had worn his ring beneath her clothes and had made no announcement. A few of the girls at the factory had known about Greg and they’d understand if she was to say she’d talked it over and they’d decided to cool everything until the war was over and she was a little more mature. They’d swallow that, even approve of it. ‘Don’t want to be rushing into anything now,’ one woman had already said the once.

‘Aye, that’s right,’ Joanne had agreed. ‘I’m having the time of my life at the moment and I’ll not give it up for any man till I’m good and ready.’

Bella and Dora would have to be told the truth, of course, but they’d not spread the tale about if she asked them not to. Her father would be disappointed, she knew. He wanted to see her settled and so did Sean. This latest development would once more chain him down. She wasn’t worried about Barney for he hadn’t approved of the engagement in the first place and she had no doubt that he’d accept what she said.

So, her pride would be intact, but inside she felt dead, numb, like half a person. This was a grievous blow she wondered if she’d ever recover from.

Her father was thankfully asleep when she reached the house. The first thing she did was to fetch an envelope from the bureau in her room and drop the ring in it. Tomorrow she would post it to Greg’s parents, where she assumed he would be staying. There was no need for any explanation.

In fact, Greg wasn’t at his parent’s, for they wouldn’t have him. His mother could scarcely believe that her son had slept with a girl before marriage, before even an understanding, and the news had shocked her to the core. Even his father, knowing more of the world and the need and urges of young men, was censorious.

‘If you couldn’t control yourself, couldn’t you at least use something?’

Greg’s head jerked up. ‘What d’you know about things like that?’

‘Enough,’ his father snapped. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday. I know too it’s against the Church’s teaching—not that they’d approve of fornication either, of course.’

‘I did use something, Dad,’ Greg admitted. ‘Except for one time, the last time. I didn’t think…Anyway, just once we used nothing.’

‘Well, that one slip-up has ruined young Maria’s life. I suppose you know that?’

And mine, Greg might have said, but he didn’t. This was no time to think of himself. He nodded and his voice was thick when he said, ‘I know, Dad.’

‘You’ve condemned her to a life of drudgery and likely broken her heart, for she loved you dearly. The times she’d come here and talk about you, it’s obvious what she thinks, how she feels. God, Greg, I’m surprised you can live with yourself.’