Mother’s Only Child

Sarah didn’t answer. Instead, her brooding eyes met those of her daughter. ‘I didn’t think your daddy would be this late,’ she said.

‘Maybe he stopped off at Rafferty’s for a drink?’ Maria said, though she knew her father had never done such a thing before.

Sarah shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t. He’d know we’d be concerned. And particularly tonight, your last night. He’d come straight home.’

‘Maybe the job was more difficult than he thought,’ Maria said soothingly. ‘Would you like me to go and look for him, maybe have a talk with some of the men?’

‘What good will that do?’

‘You never know.’

‘Oh, go if you want to.’

Maria was glad to be out of the house and doing something. She went first to see Andy Carmody, only to find he’d gone to Rafferty’s pub. She made her way there uncertainly. She’d never been in a pub in her life. It wasn’t done; the bar was the prerogative of the men. Maybe in Dublin it was customary for women to visit the pub, but it wasn’t in Moville.

She was hovering outside the door when Barney McPhearson left the pub, on his way home.

‘Why, Maria, what is it?’ he said, knowing only a matter of importance would have brought Maria there, and at that time of night.

Maria told him of her father’s absence. ‘Andy Carmody came with news he would be late,’ she went on, ‘and I’ve been to the house, but his mother said he’d gone to Rafferty’s. I just wondered if he knew anything more. We’re worried.’

With reason, Barney thought, with the time going on for eleven. But he didn’t say this. What he did say was, ‘Well, we’ll soon find out, Maria. Young Andy is in there and I’ll bring him out to talk to you.’

But Andy knew no more, though he did tell Maria that Conrad had been with him. That thought comforted Maria. At least he wasn’t alone.

‘D’you want to go up to see if Con’s wife has further news?’ Barney said. Maria nodded. However, when they arrived the house was in darkness. She hesitated. Was it likely Brenda would go to bed if Con hadn’t returned?

Some women might doze in the chair, but nearly all would be ready with a hot meal when their husbands did appear. So, full of trepidation, Maria knocked on the door.

Afterwards, Con was to say the knock barely surprised him. It was as if he’d been half expecting it. He was out of bed in seconds, taking time only to pull his trousers over his linings before he answered. He was aghast when he learnt that Sam hadn’t come home. He told Maria what he knew.

‘Wait, I’ll get dressed properly,’ he said. ‘We need to go down there and find out what’s happened.’

‘You must go home and support your mother,’ Barney said to Maria. ‘We’ll be away to Derry as soon as it can be organised. Try not to worry. We’ll find your father.’

She went home slowly, dreading to face her mother, for a heavy apprehension had settled inside her. Even then, with worry for her father gnawing away inside, she thought of the Academy and was consumed with guilt for even giving a thought to herself. The Academy and her future didn’t matter any more, she told herself firmly; the only thing that mattered was finding out what had happened to her father. She told Sarah what she knew, which was precious little. Sarah stared at her in shock and sudden petrifying fear, but she said not a word. Maria enfolded her mother’s frozen hands in her own, sat her down in the chair and made her a strong cup of tea, putting lots of sugar in, for she had heard it was good for shock.

As the news about Sam Foley spread around the village, men left unfinished pints or clambered from the bed they’d just got into. Those who owned carts harnessed horses to them and a good contingent of the men of the village clattered away in three carts as the church clock struck midnight.

Maria would have preferred to go with them. She always thought waiting for news the hardest job of all, but she knew she couldn’t leave her mother. They sat in silence, listening to the tick of the clock and the peat settling in the hearth, Maria feeling sick to her stomach as the time passed slowly.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_ffa85893-b9a4-50c7-91a3-e5ec57052b0e)

It had been half-past two when, hampered by the blackout, they’d found Sam, and half-past three before Barney McPhearson pounded on the Foleys’ door.

Sarah’s face was ravaged with worry, the puffiness around her eyes evidence of the time she’d spent weeping, but when Maria got to her feet to answer the door, Sarah stopped her. This was something she had to do herself.

Barney almost fell in the door, snatching his cap off his head as he did so.

He could barely look at Sarah’s face. He’d have preferred to talk to Maria, for all she was so young, but Sarah blocked his way and he had to tell her first. ‘Your man, Sam, has been injured,’ he said. ‘He must have slipped into the water.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘No,’ Barney said. He didn’t add ‘he might soon be’, though he knew the man must have been in the water some six hours. He’d been unconscious when they hauled him out and only prevented from drowning by the boat rammed against him. ‘He’s been taken to the hospital in Derry,’ Barney went on.

‘I must go to him,’ Sarah said.

Maria didn’t argue and neither did Barney. ‘I have the trap outside. Wrap up well, for the night air can be treacherous.’

Maria would always remember that journey, the crowd of people outside the house and Barney McPhearson’s arms encircling her as she emerged. He helped first her mother into the trap and then Maria herself, tucking the blankets he’d brought around them solicitously. Then they were off, the clop of the pony’s feet on the cobbles almost drowned by the encouraging shouts of the villagers.

Sarah was sunk in misery and Maria could do nothing but put her arm around her. It wasn’t just grief tugging at Sarah, but guilt too. For weeks, she’d prayed for something to happen to prevent Maria leaving them, but hadn’t given a thought to what that could possibly be. She had never envisaged anything happening to Sam.

Later, as she looked down at her unconscious husband in the hospital bed and listened to the doctor telling her that Sam’s legs were crushed beyond repair and he would never walk again, she knew she had condemned him to this living death. Maria would never leave home now but that thought now gave her little joy.

It was by no means certain that Sam would even survive. ‘He is,’ the doctor said, ‘a very sick man. The next twenty-four hours will be crucial.’

‘We’ll stay,’ Sarah declared, and Maria agreed.

And they did stay, sitting on a hard bench in a hospital corridor, Barney between them. When Sarah’s body sagged against him in a sleep of total exhaustion, Barney put his arm about Maria. ‘This is dreadful for you,’ he said. ‘I do understand.’

Maria was glad he was there, glad of his solid bulk beside her. He seemed, at that moment, the only one she could confide in, tell of her confused feelings. ‘Daddy—he means the world to me,’ she said. ‘I love him so very, very much, but this course at the Academy…For a full year I’ve worked towards it and for weeks have known I was going. I’ve never felt so excited, so exhilarated as I did the day I received that letter offering me a scholarship place. But, really, I shouldn’t be feeling any regret at all about it with Daddy so ill. Surely my thoughts and tears should be all for him.’

‘They are really,’ Barney assured her. ‘But you can’t just turn off hopes and dreams, kept alive this long while.’

‘You seem to understand so much,’ Maria said in surprise. She realised she’d never really taken much notice of Barney before.

‘That’s because I care a great deal about you,’ Barney said. ‘All of you.’

Maria was relieved to hear Barney say that, because she knew her mother would never deal with this. Maria herself would shoulder the burden of the house, with not even Sean on hand, with his own father so ill, and she wasn’t sure she could cope with all that responsibility alone.

‘What if Daddy doesn’t survive, Barney?’ Maria asked a few moments later.

‘Every hour that passes is better news, I should think,’ Barney said. ‘He’s in the best place and all we can do is hope and pray.’

As soon as Bella heard about the tragic events in the Foley family, and the women had returned home, she went down to see them. Sarah had already gone to bed, but Maria was still doing last-minute things. At the sadness in the girl’s eyes, Bella put her arms around her trembling shoulders.

‘Maria, there are no words to express what I feel. This is a terrible thing to happen.’

‘I know.’ Maria’s voice was barely above a whisper. ‘Daddy will live. We stayed, me and Mammy, until he was out of danger, but, oh God, Bella, if you could see him lying there so still, so white. He’s never regained consciousness and so probably doesn’t know we were there, for all I spoke to him, as the nurse advised. She raised her eyes to Bella’s and said, ‘He’ll never walk, nor work again.’

‘And the Academy?’

‘That will never be now, of course, and it does no good fretting over it. I will have more to occupy my time, anyway.’

Bella saw the disappointment in the sag of Maria’s body and the tone of her voice, yet she was right to try to put it from her mind. It would be like probing a sore tooth.

‘You know where my door is if you or your mother need anything,’ she said. ‘And I do mean anything at all.’