Mother’s Only Child

‘God,’ Sam said, ‘d’you think I don’t know that?’

‘I know,’ Barney said soothingly. ‘And it’s never an easy choice to make to put someone away, but have you thought of it from Sarah’s point of view? You might in fact be doing her a disservice leaving her in the house.’

‘How?’

Barney chose his words with care. If any sort of future lay with Maria, as he hoped, then that mad old woman could not be part of it, but he knew he mustn’t betray how he was feeling. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘she’s getting no treatment while she stays at home.’

‘Is there treatment for what ails her?’ Sam asked. Hope, like a flickering candle flame, began to burn inside him.

‘I don’t know,’ Barney said. ‘But she hasn’t had the chance to see if they can do something for her.’

‘Maria wouldn’t like her going anywhere.’

‘This isn’t just about Maria,’ Barney said bluntly. ‘It’s about what’s good for Sarah. Why don’t you talk it over with Dr Shearer? He could call one afternoon when Maria’s at work, and she’d need know nothing about it. I should be guided by him.’

Sam saw the sense of that. Dr Shearer called a couple of days later and Sam asked Barney to stay. The doctor was not a specialist in matters of the mind and didn’t pretend he was. His main concern was for Maria, for he’d often glimpsed her at Mass and knew she looked worn out.

What he said was, ‘I don’t know much about the treatments that could be offered to your wife, Sam, but they have made great strides in mental health in the past five years.’

‘So she might get a little better if we agree to her going away for specialist treatment?’ Sam said.

‘She may,’ the doctor said, and gave a shrug. ‘She may not, but one thing I can say categorically is she’ll not improve being left to languish at home.’

‘She’ll be upset,’ Sam said. ‘We’ll have to prepare her.’

‘If she is as bad as you say, she’ll hardly know anything about it,’ Dr Shearer said. ‘It’s Maria—’

‘It’s all right,’ Barney put in. ‘I’ll deal with Maria.’

The doctor’s eyes narrowed. So, he thought, that’s the way of it. He had little time for the McPhearsons and knew they didn’t earn a living honestly, and yet even those who whispered about Barney agreed he was kindness itself to Sam. Maybe, the doctor thought, if he married Maria, he’d have a turn-around. He’d seen it before.

Anyway, it wasn’t as if the path to Maria’s door was beaten down with a host of other suitors. He’d glimpsed her a few times some months back with the Hopkins lad, but that had obviously come to nothing. She needed someone to shoulder the burden she had piling on top of her and maybe Barney was better than none at all.

‘Very well then,’ the doctor said. ‘I’ll make enquiries. There’s nothing to be gained by dallying.’

So, armed with the doctor’s recommendation, they were all waiting for Maria when she came in from work. Sam had even asked Bella to come in to lend weight to the argument. Maria was semi prepared, for when she had called in at the shop to collect her mother, Dora had met her at the door and said to leave her a while, her daddy wanted to talk to her about something.

She guessed what it was, and when she saw the deputation waiting for her, she felt her heart sink. ‘What’s this?’ she said, though she knew full well.

‘Come up here to me,’ Sam urged.

Maria didn’t even remove her coat before approaching the bed and perching on the side of it, where she looked straight into her father’s face and asked again, ‘What’s this?’

Sam reached for Maria’s hands and said gently, ‘It’s about your mother, pet. You know what is to be done. There is now only one course open to us.’

The roof of Maria’s mouth was suddenly very dry. They were all ranged against her, even Barney, she thought. But Sarah was her mother. Surely, they could see that. ‘I can’t…’ she almost whimpered. ‘I can’t have her put away.’

‘Come, come,’ Sam said. ‘Don’t think of it as putting her away. Think of it as going to the psychiatric unit for treatment.’

‘Huh.’

‘Look, Maria,’ Barney said. ‘If your mother had something physical—pneumonia, let’s say—then you wouldn’t hesitate to send her to hospital. Why is this different?’

Maria didn’t know why; it just was.

‘The doctor said she’ll not know a thing about it,’ Sam said. ‘It’ll not matter to her where she is.’

Maria’s intake of breath was audible. ‘You’ve had the doctor,’ she said almost accusingly. ‘Behind my back.’

‘We wanted to know the facts,’ Sam said.

‘And they are?’ Maria demanded icily.

‘The doctor thinks we’re doing her a disservice keeping her here,’ Sam said. ‘He’s making enquiries at the hospital.’

‘And I can’t have her in the shop any more,’ Bella put in. ‘Really I can’t. It isn’t fair on anyone. She often won’t stay in the back like she used to and wanders about the place, picking things up. It puts the customers off, and Maggie is scared stiff of her now.’ She stood up and put a hand on Maria’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, cutie dear. Heartsore for you.’

Maria’s head was reeling and inside she felt wretched. She knew the decisions had been made, and she bent her head, despairing and let the tears flow unchecked.

Bella looked uncertain and Sam distressed, but Barney moved to Maria’s side immediately. He signed for Bella to go as he took Maria in his arms. She clung to him, feeling the roughness of his jacket, which smelt of tobacco, against her cheek, and the strong muscled arms holding her, as if he could protect her against anything.

Dr Shearer was wrong: Sarah might not have been aware where the ambulance men were taking her, but she knew well enough that she didn’t want to go. Maria had tried to talk to her, make her understand, but vacant eyes stared back at her and she didn’t know how much had gone in.

She’d taken the morning off that day in mid-October to be there with her mother, and Barney was there too, feeling Maria might need support, though he was longing for his bed. He’d not finished unloading the stuff till half-one. Then at two, Seamus had organised a card shop. Many of the sailors had got paid and the McPhearsons knew they could lift the money from their pockets just as if they’d put their hands in.

The game had gone on till six and then the brothers had had to bring the stuff back to this side and unload it. He’d drank whiskey as if it was water during the games of poker, and now, two and a half hours later, Barney felt decidedly the worse for wear. His bleary eyes had bags underneath them. Maria didn’t see how he looked straight away. She was just glad he was there and more than glad he was able to restrain Sarah, who attacked both the ambulance men, drawing blood from one one as her nails raked his cheek.

She began to scream as they strapped her onto the stretcher, blood-curdling screams that Maria thought could maybe be heard in Derry. They certainly brought people out to stand in the doorways, to see which poor soul was being murdered.

Sarah stopped screaming long enough to gaze slowly around the room, her eyes lighting on everything in turn, as if she was saying goodbye. Then she stared across at Sam and he gazed back at her with shame-filled eyes. Then she turned to Maria, tears trickling down her cheeks, and the look she cast them both was filled with hate. Maria staggered under the weight of bitterness behind her mother’s eyes, as if she’d suffered a blow. Again it was Barney’s arms around her shoulders that comforted her and pressed her to him. Then the screams began again as the ambulance men lifted the stretcher.

The Square was full of people. Maria was mortified by it all, and though most people’s eyes were sympathetic, it hardly helped. The only thing that helped really was Barney’s arm. Then, as most of the people dispersed to their homes when the ambulance was out of sight, Bella and Dora came over and some of the customers from the shop followed them.

‘You’re not to blame yourself, Maria,’ one of the women said. ‘You did your level best.’

‘Aye, nothing to reproach yourself for,’ another put in. ‘Daughter in a million.’

These were the very women vociferous in their condemnation of Maria even considering a new life for herself in Dublin, yet now they seemed all of a sudden on her side.

She hadn’t time for them, couldn’t even bring herself to acknowledge their words, and Barney, feeling the raw emotions running through Maria, said quietly to Dora, ‘Will you go in to Sam? He’s bound to feel it. I’m taking Maria out of this. We’ll go for a walk.’

‘You do right,’ Dora said, just as quietly. ‘She looks done in, poor girl, and she’s as white as a sheet.’

Still with his arms protectively around Maria, Barney passed through the knot of remaining people and strode up the road towards Greencastle. Once the town was behind, however, he turned inland and didn’t stop until they came to a little hilltop with a grass-covered knoll at the top, above a swift stream surging down the hillside across its rocky bed on its way to join Lough Foyle.

‘This was always one of my favourite places,’ Barney said, and they sat down together.

Maria said nothing. At least, he thought, she had stopped crying and he withdrew his hanky and mopped her face and then kissed her eyes.