Mother’s Only Child

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.’

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.’