Mother’s Only Child
Anne Bennett

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This paperback edition 2005

SIXTH EDITION

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2005

Copyright © Anne Bennett 2005

Anne Bennett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007355341

Version: 2017-09-13

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

To my youngest daughter Tamsin, with all my love

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Acknowledgments

About The Author

Other Books By

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Maria Foley almost ran across The Square that day in late July 1941. The faint summer breeze riffled through her long wavy hair, tied back loosely with a ribbon the same green as her eyes. Bella McFee, catching sight of the girl, stepped out of the post office-cum-grocery shop when she saw the envelope in Maria’s hand.

‘It’s come then?’

‘Aye,’ Maria said. She tried to keep the elation out of her voice. ‘I’ve passed.’

She saw Bella’s lips purse in disapproval and, for a moment, Maria was resentful. She’d worked for Bella in the shop for two years. Couldn’t she just say she was the tiniest bit pleased? Congratulate her even?

Her mother, Sarah, had said the right words—‘Congratulations. You’ve done well’—but in a flat, expressionless and totally insincere tone. However, what Bella did say was, ‘I’m away to see your mother. She’ll likely be feeling low after this. Mammy will mind the shop. And where are you off to in such a tear? You’re not due in till nine.’

‘The boatyard,’ Maria said. ‘I want to see Willie.’

‘Oh, he’d like to know right enough,’ Bella said. ‘But you, Maria, aren’t you the tiniest bit ashamed, wanting to go to some fancy academy in Dublin just now, when you could be a help and support to your mother? Have you no thought for her, and you an only one too?’

Immediately, guilt settled between Maria’s shoulder blades. It isn’t my fault I’m the only one, she wanted to cry. That was the main problem, of course. If her mother had had a houseful of children, she could have taken pride in the fact that her eldest daughter had won a scholarship to the Grafton Academy in Dublin to study Dress and Fabric Design for two years.

But Sarah’s fall down the stairs when Maria had been just eighteen months old had killed the child she was carrying and assured there would be no more either. It had also, so it was said, given her ‘bad nerves’. Maria hadn’t known what ‘bad nerves’ were then, of course, although she knew her father was never willing to upset her mother and strongly discouraged Maria from saying or doing anything that might disturb her at all. She was well aware that the news that morning would have disturbed her greatly, and yet she couldn’t help being pleased and, yes, proud of herself. She knew Willie would congratulate her warmly and, oh God, how she needed someone on her side for once.

‘Mammy should never have let me go in for the exam if she can’t take any joy in the fact that I have passed it,’ Maria said.

‘You don’t understand anything yet, girl,’ Bella said sharply.

Maria flushed at the sharp tone and then tossed her head a little defiantly and said, ‘I have to go, or I’ll be late getting to the shop.’

Before Bella could say another word, Maria gave her a desultory wave and ran over the green to the coastal path, which ran to Greencastle, the next village up Inishowen Peninsular. It was the path her father used to take every day bar Sunday, when he’d owned a boatyard in the small village. Now he worked at the Derry docks, and Willie Brannigan was put in charge of the Greencastle boatyard. He’d known Maria since the day of her birth and she knew he’d wish her well.

She paused on the banks of Lough Foyle, the sun, warm on her back from a cloudless sky, glittering on the water. Well, what could be seen of the water. The lough was so filled with naval craft, she could barely see Milligan’s Point on the further side, the side the British still owned. She couldn’t see the airports at Limavady and Eglinton either, but she knew they were there. It was a fine sight to see the aircraft flying above the flotilla of naval vessels on convoy duty. Her father said they were more effective at sinking German U-boats than the ships. The British-owned six counties had been dragged into the war along with Britain, but the Free State, Maria’s side of the border, had declared itself neutral and Maria knew there were soldiers from the Irish Army stationed at Buncrana, which was the other side of the peninsular, to try to ensure the Germans respected that neutrality

She gave a sigh and made her way to the boatyard. For a moment she wished Greg Hopkins was just a couple of miles away on his father’s farm and she could rush to him with her news, for he was another one who believed she was doing the right thing. He was in the army now and, though she was proud of him, she missed him sorely. Letters couldn’t make up for his absence.

It was strange how she and Greg had always been such friends, because Greg hadn’t been born in Inishowen at all, but in Birmingham, England, where his father came from, though his mother was from Moville.

The whole family had arrived in 1934 when Greg’s mother inherited a farm from an uncle. Maria had only been nine, and Greg thirteen, but she remembered the lost and unhappy boy he was then, who made no effort to make friends. He was like a fish out of water, her mother would say.

‘But, why come here?’ Maria had asked him one day, when he had been there more than a year and was ready to leave school. ‘It seems such an odd thing to do, when you were not born and bred for it.’

Greg had shrugged. ‘Dad hadn’t worked for two years when we came here. He wasn’t the only one, or owt. Many like him were hit by the slump. We were on our beam ends, nearly starving, and when we got the news about the farm out of blue, Dad said it was like a miracle. He’s pulled the farm round and it’s doing all right. At least we all get enough to eat.’

‘Do you like farm work?’

‘I hate it,’ Greg had said fiercely. ‘And I hate this little village—in fact, the whole of Inishowen—and one day I’ll go back to Birmingham. I know I’ll have to wait a while; Phil is only just ten, Billy two years younger still—the girls don’t count—and they wouldn’t be able to be much of a hand to our dad. Anyway, there’s no work for anyone much in Birmingham at the moment, but I don’t intend to stop here all the days of my life.’

But, while Greg had waited, he found Maria to be a fine distraction, especially as she grew and began attending the socials held for the young people at the church. There he danced with her many times, often walked her home and sought her company after Mass.

‘You have an admirer,’ Sarah said. She knew nothing of Greg’s restlessness. All she saw was that Greg was the eldest son and set to inherit the farm, and the family were respectable and God-fearing. If her daughter was to marry Greg Hopkins, Maria would live not far from her parents at all, and that would fulfil Sarah’s dream.

Maria wasn’t ready for any sort of relationship. ‘Don’t be silly, Mammy, he’s just being kind,’ she said. ‘He’s the same with everyone.’

That morning, though, she so wished he was there to tell her news to.

There was another person she wished was still in Moville. Philomena Clarke had been the tutor at the evening classes for dressmaking who had recognised Maria’s quite exceptional talent and knew that she had the chance of winning a scholarship to the Academy. They had gone together to the college in Derry for Maria to take the exam in May, and she had even promised she would travel down to Dublin with her and settle her in.

However, life had a hammer blow waiting to hit Philomena, for the day after the exam she had a telegram from New York from the husband of her twin sister, who had been badly injured in a car accident and was asking for her. Philomena was gone within days and a little after she had left, Maria had a letter from her. Her sister had died, leaving the husband distraught, and she had decided to stay to help him rear his three small children, who were devastated and traumatised by the tragedy.

Maria was touched that even in the middle of that appalling upheaval and upset, while still grieving for her sister, she still had a thought in her head for Maria.

‘Please write and tell me as soon as you get news from the college,’ she had pleaded in her first letter to Maria. ‘I will be on tenterhooks until I hear from you.’

Maria would write to both Greg and Philomena that very night, she decided, and she walked on, composing the letters in her head as she went.

Bella found Sarah in the scullery, washing the breakfast dishes, her red-rimmed eyes betraying the tears she’d shed. Visibly she tried to take a grip on herself when she saw Bella.

‘Shall I make a cup of tea?’ she said. ‘Have you time?’

‘Aye, Mammy’s seeing to the place and Maria will be there at nine.’

‘Maria!’ Sarah said plaintively. ‘What will I do when she leaves, Bella? I’ll be destroyed.’

‘No, you won’t!’ Bella said emphatically. ‘I’ll see you’re not.’

Bella remembered the time Sam Foley had brought his young wife back into the village to live. She’d been only young herself then, and, though married for eight years, she was still childless. Her frustrated maternal instinct was stirred by Sarah, who was only seventeen and looked such a frail and delicate wee thing, with her blonde hair and big blue eyes. The two became good friends.

‘Tom Tall and Butter Ball,’ Bella used to call the two of them, for though Sarah wasn’t that tall, her slenderness made her appear so. Bella was, like her mother, under five foot and ‘as wide and she was high’, she was fond of saying. That wasn’t strictly speaking true, but she was plump and her mother, Dora Carmody, stouter still. Everything about them was round, but their faces were open and friendly and their brown eyes kindly looking. Bella had once had dark blonde hair, but now it was as grey as her mother’s and, like hers, fastened into a bun.

Sam Foley, being the third son, had never thought to inherit the boatyard in Greencastle, nor the family house in nearby Moville. Knowing there would be no opening for him in the family business, his father had apprenticed him to a carpenter friend, who ran his business from a small town called Belleek, in the neighbouring county of Fermanagh, when Sam had been twelve years old.

Sarah Tierney’s family lived not far from the village, on a thriving farm in Derrygonnelly on the banks of the huge Lough Erne, and Sarah often shopped in Belleek with her sisters, Peggy and Mary.

There she met and fell in love with Sam, and he with her. No obstacles were put in the way of her marrying him, for everyone liked the man and knew he was set to inherit the carpentry business, so it was generally thought that Sarah had done well for herself.

Sam’s family had come down for the wedding, and there Sam’s two brothers sought him out and told him they were off to seek their fortune in America as soon as it could be arranged. The boatyard was all his if he wanted it.

Sam wasn’t keen to go back and knew Sarah would be unhappy living so far away from her people, but he also knew his father couldn’t run the place alone. His only option was to return.

The only sweetener to that very bitter pill for Sarah was the house Sam inherited along with the boatyard. It was a fine, solid house just off The Square in Moville. It had two storeys, three bedrooms, and was built of stone with a slate roof. ‘A family house,’ Sam’s father had said. ‘Me and your mother will be fine and dandy in the wee cottage in Greencastle by the boatyard.’

‘I mind the day Sam’s brothers left as if it were yesterday,’ Sarah said to Bella as they drank their tea. ‘We hadn’t been in Moville more than a day or so and we went down to the pier to see them off. Sam had told me that the liners crossing the Atlantic had to be moored out in the deeper waters of Lough Foyle. Passengers were taken out to the ships in small tenders from Moville Pier. There was always a collection of people waiting and that day was no different.

‘Sam’s brothers seemed sorrowful yet, for all their sadness at the parting, they still left. When they climbed into that boat, Sam’s mother’s eyes were so bleak and bereft, I could hardly bear to look at her. The father was holding her fast, or I think she may have thrown herself into the boat after her sons. We waited at the pier side until we saw the small boat bump alongside the liner. The boys gave one last wave and we turned for home. Sam’s mother was crying gulping sobs of such sadness I felt my heart turn over. I thought I understood how she was feeling; I remember thinking I’d die if one of mine was to go such a distance away.’

She sighed and went on, ‘I tell you, Bella, children would tear the very heart out of you.’

However, more tragedy was to hit Sarah. She’d been married just six months when her mother and sisters, Peggy and Mary, took sick with TB. They were all dead before October drew to a close, before Sarah had been able to arrange to go and see them. She’d not even had the chance to bid them goodbye and she spoke of this now to Bella.

‘D’you mind that time?’

Bella remembered it well. Sarah’s grief had been so deep and profound, Sam had worried for her sanity. They travelled down for the funerals. Seeing everyone there so mournful and sorrow-laden had made Sarah worse.

‘Daddy was so sad it near broke my heart to see him,’ Sarah said to Bella. ‘He didn’t seem to see anything around him and it was up to my brother Sean to keep the farm ticking over.’

It was arranged that a widowed aunt called Agatha, whose children were grown and married, would see to things in the house and Sam and Sarah returned to Moville.

‘I never thought I’d be happy again in the whole of my life,’ Maria reminded Bella. ‘And then I found I was expecting. A little life would be dependent on me, something to go on for.’ She grasped Bella’s hand and went on, ‘You showed what a true friend you were then, for you showed not a trace of envy and yet I know how you had always longed for a child of your own.’

That brought the tears to Bella’s own eyes, for it was a burden she carried with her always.

‘When Maria was born, in 1925, I thought her the most beautiful baby in all the world,’ Sarah said, ‘and for sixteen years she has been at the forefront of my mind all the time. I love her so much, Bella, and I really can’t bear the pain of losing her. Once Maria leaves this village I know she will never come back to live.’

‘You will get through this, you know,’ Bella said. ‘It will take time, but it will get easier. I thought when my man died I’d never recover from it.’

‘That was a tragic time, right enough,’ Sarah agreed. It had been a tragic time for both of them. Sarah had just has the disastrous fall that rendered her sterile and was in the hospital. Bella was looking after the toddling Maria, when her husband, a fine, strapping man, who’d never had a day’s illness in his life, suddenly keeled over as he was getting up from his dinner, and was dead before he reached the floor.

‘We supported each other then,’ Bella said.

‘Aye, and wasn’t it wee Maria who was the salvation of us both?’

‘She was indeed,’ Bella agreed. ‘Then Mammy said she couldn’t manage the shop on her own and asked me in with her. I don’t know whether she really couldn’t manage, or did it for me, but I know the occupation of it was a good thing.’

‘I know it,’ Sarah said. ‘But what occupation could I take up that will chase the heartache from me?’

Bella had no answer to this and Sarah went on, ‘I knew that Maria was good at sewing and all. I mean, I taught her to sew, darn, embroider, that sort of thing, and in time she was better than me—far neater, and faster too. I knew she had an eye for colour, the things that go together. Whenever we went in the draper’s shops in Derry, she’d be fascinated by the array of fabrics. She’d feel them between her fingers and be amazed by the different things you could sew on to decorate clothes. She’d prowl around the haberdashery counter like another child might do around a cake shop.

‘I took it as a good, wifely attribute, especially when she mastered that old treadle machine. I told her she’d be a catch for any man, for you know she could make something out of nothing, and I encouraged her to go to evening classes for dressmaking. People say you can’t make a silk purse out of sow’s ear—well, I think Maria probably could.

‘She’s a tidy cook too—we all know the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach—and she’s helped me with the laundry this past year or so. She can poss the clothes, starch and iron with the best of them.’

She looked at Bella with mournful eyes and said, ‘She’ll make a good wife for someone in a year or two, when she is fully grown. That’s what I want for her—to marry a boy here so I can still see her and help her rear any children she might have. It’s all I’ve wanted since the first moment I held her in my arms, and if it hadn’t been for this damned war it would have happened like that. Whatever Philomena Clarke wanted, without the war, Maria going to the Academy would have been impossible.’

Bella knew that was true. By the time Maria finally left school at Easter 1939, everyone knew Britain, and therefore Derry and the other counties across the Foyle, was perched on the brink of war, despite Chamberlain’s claim that there’d be ‘peace for our time’, the previous September.

As soon as Easter was over, Maria had got a job in the shop with Bella and her mother, Dora, and began at her evening classes, but wasn’t in the house when Philomena went to see her mother and told her about the Grafton Academy in Dublin where the gifted Maria could learn Dress and Fabric Design, which would fit her for a fine and well-paid job in a Dublin fashion house later. ‘I am sure she will win a scholarship,’ she’d said. ‘The girl has an amazing talent. I’ve never seen or taught someone so good before.’

‘But she’s so young,’ Sarah had said. ‘Little more than a child.’

‘We’re not talking about now,’ Miss Clarke said gently. ‘But of two years’ time. Maria will be sixteen then.’

‘But where would she stay?’

‘Well,’ Philomena said, ‘I have been making enquiries and the college has a hostel nearby. I believe the rates are very reasonable.’

And there the discussion had ended, for times had been hard for years. Often Sam had repaired a boat for a neighbour, knowing that if he insisted on payment the man and his wife and children would not eat. How could he do that? Sometimes he took his payment in fish, sometimes in instalments, and sometimes he’d get nothing at all. He was glad his parents, who’d died within a month of one another in 1935, were no longer there to provide for from a yard that paid so little. In those lean pre-war years Sam often thanked God that he had just the one child to rear, though he would have loved a son.

When England finally made the declaration of war with Germany in the autumn of 1939, life became harder still. There was no longer any fishing at all, for Lough Foyle was commandeered by the navy, and so were the docks in Derry, which were renamed HMS Ferret. Lough Foyle was quickly filled with naval warships, destroyers, frigates, corvettes and converted trawlers.

The open sea, full of mines and German submarines, was no place for fishermen either, so they hung up their nets and many younger men enlisted in the armed forces, despite the neutrality pact.

Sam too had little work, although there was a small fishing fleet still operating in Lough Swilly on the other side of the peninsular. There he was able to pick up a bit of repair and maintenance work. Sometimes, though, he had so little to bring home at the end of the week, he was ashamed.

Many of the women took themselves off to Derry to work in the shirt factories, most now converted to making uniforms for the armed forces. In a good few homes it was the women who put the food on the table. Sam knew himself how it cut into a man’s pride to see his wife provide for the family while he was idle. He was embarrassed that he was often dependent on the money that Maria would tip up on the table every Friday evening and the big bag of groceries that Bella would pack for her. They got by, like many others, but there was no money to spare and certainly none to send a daughter off to Dublin to train in some fancy academy. Sarah told Philomena Clarke that firmly. Maria never knew of her visit.

In June 1940, the rescue of the British from the beaches of Dunkirk was heroic, but while the operation was a magnificent achievement, it was still a defeat, a fact that couldn’t be disguised. Most of mainland Europe was under Nazi control and only a small strip of water separated Britain from the German Armies, massing ready for invasion on the French coast.

A smartly dressed man called in to see Sam in the boatyard just a few days after the fall of France. He was so unlike Sam’s usual customers that he was intrigued. ‘Can I help you, sir?’

‘Yes, I hope so,’ the man said. ‘My name is Robert Dawlish and I work for the Government in London. Word has it that you are the best around here at repairing boats.’

‘I do all right.’

The man stood gazing at the very few boats bobbing in the small harbour. He knew the navy commandeering Lough Foyle had sounded the death knell for the fishermen that had operated from here and, because of that, this man’s business too. But winning the war held precedent and everyone had to be expected to make sacrifices. He asked the question he already knew the answer to. ‘Is the boatyard profitable?’

‘Is that any of your business?’ Sam snapped.

‘It could be and I have a reason for asking.’

‘I have no reason to reply.’

‘Don’t be so pig-headed, man.’ Dawlish snapped. ‘You haven’t even heard what I have to say yet. I may be able to offer you something more lucrative.’

Then Sam knew he probably couldn’t afford to be too rude. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘State your business.’

‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ Dawlish said. ‘With Ireland determined to be neutral in this war, Derry is Britain’s most westerly point. It will be needed as an escort base, to try and protect the merchant ships. We intend to establish a large repair workshop on Strand Road, alongside the present graving dock, and use Derry as a refuelling depot too.’

Sam nodded. He could see the sense of it. ‘How do I come in?’

‘I’d like you to be part of the repair team,’ the man said.

‘Working for the British Government?’ Sam said, bristling.

‘Indirectly, but if that offends you, think of it as working for a freer Europe,’ the man said, adding more harshly, ‘Do you think for one moment your neutrality will matter a jot to the Germans if they invade Britain? Norway tried that, to no avail. If Britain is invaded, Ireland will fall too. Mark my words.’

Sam was no fool and he knew the few men the Irish Government had stationed at Buncrana would be no match for the highly disciplined German Army if they were intent on invasion and so he said to the man, ‘All right then, say I agree to this, how is it to be arranged?’

The man sighed inwardly in relief. He hadn’t been sure he’d get this Sam Foley to agree. The word was he could be stiff-necked, and he was no lover of the English. Dawlish went on, choosing his words with care, ‘You would work for the Admiralty, but in a civilian capacity, and as the foreman you could choose your own team, men you know and can trust.’

Sam knew he was being given a chance, certainly while the war lasted, to lift the standard of living for all the men involved. Pride was a fine thing to have, when you had enough to eat, warm clothes to wear and a good fire to sit beside. ‘When would you want us to start?’ he asked.

‘Time is of an essence,’ Dawlish said. ‘We have a war to win. Shall we say Monday week? Is that time enough to get people together?’

‘Plenty of time, but how are we to get to the docks? The first bus from Moville doesn’t get to Derry till eight twenty. Presumably you’d want us to start work before then.’

‘Don’t worry about that. We’ll send a military truck to pick you up at half-past seven. How many men can you round up?’

Sam did a swift calculation. ‘Sixteen, maybe seventeen at the outside. Would that be all right?’

‘Splendid.’

‘And wages. They’ll need to know. I’ll need to know.’

‘This will have to be agreed upon officially,’ the civil servant said, ‘but it will be in the region of twelve pounds ten shillings for yourself as foreman, and ten pounds for the men you bring with you.’

Twelve pounds ten shillings—the figure floated in Sam’s mind. It was riches. It would be riches for them all. He extended his hand to Dawlish and they shook warmly.

‘It’s a deal.’

Sam went out visiting the neighbours he wanted in his new team that night, even routing a few from Rafferty’s pub. Eventually he had his chosen men around him. His special mate, Conrad Milligan, was to be his second in command.

The men all went back to Rafferty’s to seal their future in pints of Guinness. There they met Barney McPhearson, who listened to the talk of the men and then approached Sam and asked if he could be part of the team.

Sam had little time for Barney. The McPhearsons had always been known as a bad lot and Barney’s brother was the worst of all. He had never had a real job of work, though he didn’t seem short of money. Sam didn’t want the responsibility of taking Barney on. Every man was hand-picked and he could vouch for their diligence and honesty. He could not do that with Barney McPhearson.

‘I have all the men I need,’ he said shortly.

Barney’s face fell. ‘I’m real sorry about that, Mr Foley,’ he said respectfully enough. ‘There’s sod all doing in Moville just now.’

Sam suddenly felt sorry for the lad. Maybe Barney could be turned around yet, he thought. After all, he was just twenty. Maybe all he needed was a helping hand.

‘I think you’re right,’ Sarah said that evening, when Sam discussed it with her. ‘If you don’t want the man on your team, why not give him a job at the boatyard? He can do the work you’ve picked up in Buncrana from the Lough Swilly fishing boats. Willie is too old to make the journey to Buncrana more that a time of two, but he’ll be there to keep him in line.’

Sam offered this position to Barney, though he knew Willie, who’d been in the boatyard since he’d been a lad, working for his late father, wouldn’t be able to keep anyone in line. He’d never been that sort and now the old man’s mind had begun to slip. Sam kept him on only out of kindness. He didn’t even pick up a wage any more, for he said he was fine with his pension and he just loved being around and dealing with boats.

Sam said none of this to Sarah, but what he did say was, ‘Tell that teacher our Maria can go to that Academy place now. I’ll be earning enough soon to pay for her accommodation.’

‘The girl knows nothing about any academy, sure,’ Sarah said to Sam.

‘Surely she should have this chance?’

‘Not at all,’ Sarah said. ‘She’s not that type of child.’

‘I wonder what Sean would think about it,’ Sam mused.

Sean was the only sibling Sarah had left. She loved him dearly and thought a lot of his opinion. He’d been delighted when Maria was born and took great joy in her, seeing in his niece the child he might never have. Despite the confines of the farm, he saw the family as often as he could. Maria in turn adored her uncle.

Sean had often regretted that his beloved niece would be brought up on her own, but accepted it as the will of God, like he’d accepted the idea that she wouldn’t be able to go to Grafton Academy, despite her gift, when Sarah had told him of the teacher’s visit. Now, the opportunity was there again as Sarah explained when Sean next visited her. He fastened his wise brown eyes upon Sarah and said, ‘It would be wrong to deny her the chance at least of trying for the scholarship.’

‘Ah, Sean, how can you say that? You know I only have Maria.’

‘You cannot chain her to your side,’ Sean said. ‘God knows, I’m well aware what that feels like.’

‘You don’t like the farm, do you?’

Sean sighed. ‘It isn’t me we’re talking of. If Maria ever found out that you denied her this chance, she might hold it against you.’

Sarah couldn’t bear the thought of that. Later, reluctantly, she said to Sam, ‘I’ll contact Philomena and see what Maria has to do.’

Maria, who hadn’t any idea of the things being planned for her, was ecstatic when she was told. The light of excitement danced in her eyes at the thought of being given the chance of such a glittering and wonderful future, doing something she enjoyed above all else. She had no problem with the work Philomena set for her, either. The teacher explained that the academic standard was high too, and Maria would have to work hard if she wanted to secure a scholarship.

Maria told Greg all about the plans for her future as soon as she could, and though he was sincerely pleased for her and said so, other worries had been pressing on his mind after Dunkirk. One of these was the thought that it was wrong to sit out the war in Ireland, when Britain was in such dire straits. While he was milking the cows, hoeing the ground for planting and feeding the pigs, many like him were away fighting the enemy.

He turned this over and over in his mind. Phil, the brother nearest to him in age, was fifteen now and had left school, Billy was thirteen, and both of them were now well able to help their father. The girls, still at school, already helped their mother.

That same night Maria told Greg about the Academy, he told his father he wanted to enlist. Greg’s father wasn’t surprised, for he knew how the lad felt about farming. He respected him for the fact he had never shown any resentment and worked alongside him as hard as the next man. He knew too that Greg was worried about the war, the more so since Dunkirk.

‘You’ve never taken to this life, have you, Greg?’ he asked.

‘No, Dad,’ Greg said. ‘I know why you took the place on and that if we were to make a go of it we had to work hard. Phil and Billy were too young to be of any use, but now…‘

‘Now they are,’ his father finished the sentence for him. ‘You must do as you feel fit. What outfit were you thinking of joining—the Fusiliers, the Inniskillings?’

‘No, Dad,’ Greg said. ‘There is only one regiment for me. I want to go back to Birmingham and join the Royal Warwickshires.’

His father clapped him on the back. ‘Good on you, son.’

‘There’s just Mom,’ Greg said. ‘She’s bound to be upset.’

‘Leave your mother to me.’

However, Greg’s mother wailed and cried, and held her son tight as if she’d never let him go. When all this failed she said, ‘And what of Maria in all this? I know you are sweet on her.’

‘She is set for two years yet in the Academy in Dublin next year if she passes the scholarship,’ Greg said. ‘There is no understanding between us, although I will ask her to write. She will understand I must follow my heart, as she is doing.’

Greg’s mother said no more. She knew she had lost.

Maria was sad to see Greg leave, but soon she was too busy to miss anyone. She had little time for a social life—for going around the village arm in arm with giggling girlfriends, or having a day in Derry. She wrote to Greg, though they were letters only of one friend to another. Now, in her next letter, she could tell him all the extra work and worry was over and her future was set.

When Maria reached the boatyard to tell Willie Brannigan her news, the first people she saw were Barney McPhearson taking his ease outside, talking to his brother, Seamus. She knew her father wouldn’t like Seamus hanging about the boatyard, for he always said he was a bad influence on his younger brother, but what could he do, away in Derry everyday, even if she were to tell him? And what could she tell him? Only that Barney was talking to his brother. She had no idea if Seamus was a regular visitor to the boatyard. Maybe he’d just popped in today with a message. Surely Willie would mention it if he were worried?

Barney’s eyes lit up when he caught sight of Maria approaching, for he had a great fancy for the girl. ‘Now isn’t this a sight for sore eyes, or any eyes at all, for that matter,’ he addressed Seamus. The older man looked her all over, his leering eyes raking her body in a way that made Maria feel uncomfortable.

She had no time for it, and none at all for Seamus, so she gave neither a greeting and asked instead, ‘Where’s Willie?’

‘In the boathouse,’ Barney said. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing,’ Maria said. ‘It’s not that important. Well, I mean it is to me. I got this today,’ and she handed Barney the letter.

Barney had known about Maria taking the exam for the Academy and hadn’t been pleased. He was a handsome, well-set-up young man, and most girls and young women were falling over themselves to be noticed by him. But Maria, the one he wanted, seemed not a bit impressed by him. He had no desire for her to be spirited away to Dublin and snapped up by another, but he sensed that to say so wasn’t the way to play this and so he congratulated her warmly.

‘Why, that’s tremendous, so it is, Maria,’ he said, taking the paper from her hand. ‘D’you see this?’ he said to Seamus, pointing at it. ‘Our Maria here has won a scholarship to a fancy academy, in Dublin no less.’

Seamus murmured his congratulations. Barney knew his brother thought him mad to hanker after the unattainable. Their parents had died when Barney was ten, but his father hadn’t worked for years before that. The family had lived on charity. Barney was left in the doubtful care of his elder brother, who’d then been twenty-one. He had often gone hungry and Seamus was not averse to giving him the odd clout, or even a thrashing a time or two. The priest had been called out once by worried neighbours and yet Barney perversely loved his brother.

‘Plenty more fish in the sea,’ Seamus had said, when he first saw the lustful glances Barney was giving Maria Foley. ‘She’s not for the likes of you and guarded well. Anyway, you know what you are like. If you got her you’d likely not want her, because it’s how you are with everything.’

‘This,’ maintained Barney, ‘is different.’

And now here she was before him. Greatly daring, Barney put his two arms around Maria’s waist, and drew her close.

Maria submitted to the embrace willingly, though usually would not have allowed such familiarity. She put it down to the man being so pleased for her. Certainly she found the kiss he planted on her full lips very pleasant indeed.

Seamus shook his head over his young brother. Willie, watching from the doorway, felt prickles of alarm down his spine. He could have told many a tale about the young man, like the fact Barney was too fond of drinking the afternoon away while he played a hand or two of cards with his brother and like-minded fellows and took little notice of Willie if he tried to take him to task about it.

Willie had said nothing to Sam because he could do little, away in Derry all the day. He’d never worry Sarah about such things. It wasn’t as if they were overburdened with work now that the fishing fleet had had to be disbanded.

Maria broke away from Barney’s embrace, and ran over to tell Willie the news. He was as delighted for her as Maria had known he would be. His lined face beamed and his blue eyes became moist with the emotion of it all.

As he put his arms around her, his words of congratulations held a note of relief, though Maria wasn’t aware of it. A new life beckoned Maria, Willie thought, and quite right too, well away from the clutches of people like Barney McPhearson. Really, he thought, it couldn’t come soon enough.

CHAPTER TWO

All who came in the shop that day were told of Maria’s success. Though they all congratulated her, Maria knew by their faces that many thought it a disgraceful thing for her to leave her mother. Some actually said this.

‘I mean,’ said one woman. ‘It’s hard right enough when you have just the one. Have you thought this through, Maria? Your mother will undoubtedly miss you.’ and then added, ‘Especially the way she is.’

‘The way she is?’ Maria asked. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, she’s not very strong, is she?’ the woman went on. ‘And nervy, like. Not been right since she lost the baby and that was years ago.’

‘She’s fine,’ Maria protested. ‘She’s grand now.’

The woman’s face was grave. ‘Funny things, nerves. Never really recover, if you have a tendency to nerves.’

Maria, who had been brought up to have respect for her elders and betters, could hardly be rude to customers, but by the time she was ready to leave for the day she was worn down by the disapproval many had shown her.

Maria wanted to let her Uncle Sean know the result of the exam, but he was no longer able to visit them so often because in January, Maria’s Granddad Tierney had been diagnosed with a tumour in his stomach. Since April he’d been needing round-the-clock nursing. Sean took it in turn with Agatha, while he also did the work on the farm and Agatha the work in the house.

Maria was so insistent that her uncle should be told her news that Sam went with her to visit him by bus and train on Saturday, 26 July. Bella gladly gave her the day off, knowing how much she loved her uncle. Sean’s praise and congratulations were genuine, and the welcome they both got was warm. Only Sam read the weariness in Sean’s eyes.

As Sean hugged the girl’s slight frame and told her how proud he was, he realised how like her mother she was, though her hair was the colour of deep mahogany, and her eyes vivid green, with long black eyelashes. But Maria had Sarah’s slight frame and elfin face. Sean saw that his niece was shedding her childhood and becoming a stunningly beautiful young lady. He wondered if she’d make the two years at the academy before some young Dublin swain claimed her.

But, he reminded himself, the girl was focused on a new life for herself and so far had never let her head be turned. He was saddened that now he’d see even less of her. He knew he’d done the right thing encouraging Sarah to let her daughter try for the scholarship, although all their lives would be poorer when Maria moved out of the village.

Sarah, who’d prayed earnestly for Maria to fail the exam, now redoubled her efforts to stop Maria leaving home. To this end she had a Mass said, lit numerous candles, began a novena and attended every service at the chapel. Always she pleaded the same thing; ‘Please God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost and Mary who has tasted sorrow herself, stop this. Let something happen to prevent my girl from leaving home.’ The same beseeching plea was made as she knelt before her bed at night, and in the morning as soon as she woke.

Maria was unaware of this, but she was fully aware of her mother’s sighs and reproachful looks. Though she was a model daughter, as the summer wore on, it began to wear her down and she wished the days could speed by.

She was due to go up on 9 September, although the term didn’t start until a few days after that. It was to give the girls time to get to know each other and familiarise themselves with a city that would be their home for two years. Even to think about it sent a thrill running all through Maria.

Sarah and Sam threw a party on the night of 7 September to mark Maria’s departure. As people hugged her, patted her on the back and wished her Godspeed, she realised how she’d miss them. She’d known most of them all her life and she felt tears stinging her eyes.

‘Don’t start being homesick before you’ve even left the place,’ Sam said suddenly at her elbow.

Maria flashed him a watery smile. ‘I’ll try not to,’ she said.

Sam patted her on the arm. ‘That’s my girl.’

All the evening, Sam watched his daughter, already aching with the loss of her. He could easily have resented Philomena Clarke for putting such odd notions in a young girl’s head, but he knew she’d had only Maria’s best interests at heart when she’d had made the suggestion. What sort of a father would he be if he didn’t allow his daughter the chance of a better future?

Sam had loved Sarah since the moment he’d seen her, and loved her still, though her once blonde hair now had streaks of grey in it. His was the same, of course, though it had once been as dark as Maria’s. His eyes, though, were a indeterminate grey, not vibrant green like his daughter’s. Maria had been the icing on the cake for the pair of them. He knew when she left, a lot of the joy would go out of his life.

Sam recognised that Sean felt the same, for his deep brown eyes were full of sadness. His father was too ill for him to be away from the farm for long and it was still light when he left. Sam watched the stooped, dejected stance of him as he strode towards The Square and the bus into Derry. He remembered how straight and upright Sean had once been.

Now he was tied to a farm he had no love for, tended by the dour, sour-faced Agatha, and watching his father sink daily. He’d had no chance of a life of his own, no loving wife to greet him and warm his bed at night, no child to climb onto his knee and gladden his heart. Sam knew Sean would feel the loss of Maria almost as keenly as her parents would.

Eventually, the party drew to a close. There would be more than one thick head in the village the following morning. Sam felt a little that way himself, if he was honest. He’d drank far more than was customary for him and he had work in the morning.

He followed his wife and daughter to bed, but once there, despite the tiredness stinging his eyes and the beer consumed, he lay wide-eyed and restless for hours before utter weariness claimed him.

The following evening the truck stood ready and waiting to take the men home. Yet Sam was loath to leave the docks, despite it being Maria’s last evening in Moville for some time.

‘How important is the frigate? he asked the lieutenant. ‘There’s still a fault in the engine room and it can’t go out tomorrow the way it is.’

‘It’s part of the convoy scheduled to leave at dawn.’

‘Well, I’ll stay to finish it,’ Sam said. ‘Con will give me a hand. There’s no need to keep the others. More than two will not fit in that small space anyway. But how will we get back home when we’ve finished? I don’t fancy walking.’

‘I’ll see if I can rustle up a couple of bicycles,’ the lieutenant said. ‘You can pile them in the truck in the morning. Will that do?’

‘Aye,’ Sam said with a chuckle, ‘though it’s years since I was astride a bike. I’ll more than likely have a sore backside in the morning.’

The lieutenant smiled. He liked both Sam and Con, and knew them to be first-rate workers, the sort who’d get on with the job in hand and not need the whip cracked over them.

‘I’m grateful, Sam,’ he said. He hesitated a moment and then went on, ‘There’s something else. Keep your eyes peeled, will you? There’s a rumour circulating the IRA are planning something.’

‘They’ll never get in here,’ Sam said. ‘Haven’t you the place as tight as a drum?’

‘They might, if they had help from inside.’

‘Who’d do that?’ Sam said and then as the man said nothing, burst out, ‘It’ll not be one of my men. I hope you’re not suggesting—’

‘No, no, I’m not. They came on your surety and that’s good enough for me, but I’m convinced if the IRA break in here, they’ll do it because someone from the inside will have helped them.’

‘They could cause havoc,’ Sam said. ‘Buggering up the boats could leave the merchant ships unprotected. Don’t they think of that?’

‘Obviously not.’

‘Well, I’ll keep my eyes and ears to the ground, never fear. Mind you, you’d have to have eyes like a cat to see anything in this blackness. Nights are certainly drawing in.’

The lieutenant agreed and watched as Sam walked over to the truck. Sam knew Con wouldn’t bat an eyelid at working over, but he told a couple in the truck to tell Sarah and Con’s wife, Brenda, where they were. ‘Don’t give them a time that we’ll be home,’ he cautioned. ‘I don’t know how long it will take us and I don’t want Sarah fretting.’

It was Andy Carmody, Bella’s nephew, who called at the Foley door later and told Sarah and Maria about Sam. Sarah knew her man and she recognised that, as the gaffer, the responsibility would lie on his shoulders. She was glad, though, when Andy told her Con was there too.

‘Pity,’ she said to Maria. ‘And on your last night too.’

‘It’s Daddy I feel sorry for,’ Maria said. ‘He’s already been at it for hours. The job must be urgent for him to stay. But I’m no wean any more; I understand these things.

In the engine room of the frigate, Sam and Con toiled away. The job was not difficult but the parts were tricky to reach and it was taking much longer than Sam had anticipated.

More than two hours after the others had left, Sam and Con tightened up the last bolt, wiped their oily hands on rags and climbed off the ship onto the dockside, where the lieutenant had left the bikes standing against a wall.

It was as they were pushing them to the gates that Sam heard the hoot of an owl, followed by a thud, as if a person or persons had landed on the deck of one of the ships.

‘What was that?’ Con asked.

‘I don’t know, but if that was an owl hooting just now, then I’m a Dutchman,’ Sam said. He recalled the conversation he’d had with the lieutenant that evening and knew he’d have to investigate the noise.

‘We’ll go together,’ Con said when Sam told him what the lieutenant had said.

‘No,’ Sam said. ‘Brenda will be waiting with your supper. You best go on home.’

‘Why don’t you call the dock police?’

‘I will,’ Sam said, ‘soon as I’m certain. Don’t worry, I’m not bursting in there myself like some unsung hero, but it’s just maybe two young fellows having a lark and I can send them home with boxed ears and no harm done. If I think it’s more serious, then I’ll get help quick. Don’t worry. Go on, I don’t intend spending one minute longer than necessary. I am fair jiggered and then it’s Maria’s last night. I’ll likely overtake you on the road.’

Con went. He knew Brenda would go for him when he reached home as it was. She had a fine temper on her when she wanted. But he was worried about Sam and told the policeman, as he let him out of the gates, what they’d heard.

‘I’m being relieved in less than ten minutes,’ the policeman reassured Con. ‘I’ll take a look for your mate before I go off, but he’ll likely contact us before then…‘

When Con left, Sam began walking stealthily to where he was sure the thudding noise had come from. He knew he had to be careful, especially when he left the quayside and boarded one of the ships moving gently in the water. His eyes strained to see in the darkness and he crept gingerly forward.

A pinprick of light alerted him first, a match and then the smell of cigarette smoke on the breeze and the soft murmur of voices. He couldn’t hear the words, but he didn’t need to. He knew whoever the people were just ahead of him, they were not a couple of kids, but grown men probably intent on destruction, and the sooner he got off the boat and got help the better.

In his haste to turn round, he stumbled. He didn’t fall, but stood for a moment stock-still, wondering if the slight sound he’d made had alerted the men in any way.

There was no sound of pursuit, however, so Sam went on again. He crossed to a gunboat, which lay against the dockside wall. Thinking it a safer route, he was creeping round the deck of the boat, next to the wall, when his foot slipped and he fell with a thud onto the deck. He lay still for a moment, but he didn’t appear to be hurt anywhere, just winded. He began struggling to his feet.

There was a sudden thump in the middle of his back and, unbalanced as he was, he couldn’t save himself. He couldn’t prevent the cry that escaped from him. His hands clawed desperately at the air as he tumbled from the boat and hit the water with a splash.

The shock and cold of it took his breath away at first and then he began to thresh about, trying to find the side of the boat, anything to pull himself up. Suddenly the boat, jostled by its neighbour, moved slightly, crushing Sam against the harbour wall.

Sam screamed against the agonising pain, but the boat pinned him effectively and what came out was just a groan. He knew he would die, there in the dockside. The pain of leaving Sarah and Maria, and the thought of what they’d do if he wasn’t there to see to them caused him to close his eyes against encroaching death.

By the time the policeman went off duty, Sam was unconscious and the dockyard as silent as a grave, the only sound that of the lap of water as the boats moved against the swell. He called for Sam—more urgently when he found his bicycle still propped against the wall—but there was no answer. In the end he went into the barracks room and reported that Sam was missing.

The lieutenant who had spoken to him earlier that evening was more worried than anyone. He led the search for Sam Foley, but in the light of the shaded torches, all that the Government allowed in the blackout, to search for anyone was a miserable and probably pointless task.

Despite the message sent with one of his colleagues, Conrad’s wife berated him soundly for the time he’d got home, hours after the others. ‘There was a job to finish. I’m second in command,’ he protested. ‘Sam was there too. In fact, I intend going over in an hour or so to see he’s made it back all right.’

‘Why shouldn’t he?’

‘He was still at the docks when I left.’

‘Why?’

‘He heard a noise and went to have a closer look.’

‘What sort of noise?’

‘Any noise would be unusual in a dockyard that is supposed to be deserted.’

‘On his own?’

‘Aye,’ Con said. ‘The police and military are almost within calling distance and military police patrol the dock every hour or so.’

‘Well, then, what harm could come to him? Isn’t he surrounded by people?’

‘I know. I’d just like to check.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Brenda said. ‘Isn’t Sam a grown man?’

‘I know, but—’

I know, I know…Dear Christ, if Sam suggested you leap in the fire, you’d likely consider it,’ Brenda said scathingly. She was jealous of the deep regard the two men had for one another and always had been. ‘It’s not Sam Foley you’re married to, a fact you seem to forget at times. I see little enough of you. The only place you’ll go this night is to your bed with me.’

Con, seeing the set of his wife’s mouth, wondered what would happen if he was just to put on his coat and push past her to still the tug of anxiety he had for Sam. But Brenda’s temper was such that he seldom defied her and he was too weary himself to start a fight, which he knew from experience could go on for hours. So he shrugged.

‘As you like,’ he said. ‘But, it’s not unusual to be concerned for a mate.’

The knot of worry stayed with Con, even after he’d climbed the stairs and into bed, where he lay wide awake.

By half-past ten, Sarah became concerned. Andy had told them Sam would be late, but did he mean as late as this? She hated Sam to be in Derry long after dark in case there was a raid.

Derry had been attacked only the once, and that had been on the previous Easter Tuesday. The sirens were plainly heard in Moville, but in the end there was just one bomber, which dropped two parachute mines. The newspapers reported that the pilot was trying to bomb the river, but he missed that and the mines landed in the Messine’s Park area of the city, killing thirteen people and injuring thirty-three.

Yet the city had got away lightly, because that same night, Belfast had been blitzed, leaving over nine hundred people dead. Sarah was always worrying that it might be Derry’s turn next.

She put down her knitting and sat with her hands in her lap, listening.

Maria put down the book she’d been reading and watched her mother with concern. She too was anxious about her father and yet she knew she had to shield her anxiety from her mother. It had always been that way. ‘Shall I put the wireless on, Mammy?’

‘No, child, I have no heart for it.’

‘I’ll make a cup of tea for us then, shall I?’

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

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.’

‘Aye, Bella, I do, and I thank you, but just now I am too weary to think about anything but my bed.’

‘And I’ll not keep you from it a moment longer,’ Bella said. ‘Go on up now. I’ll let myself out.’

When Sam was in a position to know that he was paralysed from the waist down, he wished he had died. Inside his head he ranted and railed about his condition, though he wouldn’t let his daughter see his anger and frustration nor his tears of self-pity.

He worried as to how they would all manage when he would be unable to work and was glad that they had the support of Barney McPhearson. He’d completely misjudged that young man.

He felt bad about Maria, who’d once held her future in the palm of her hand and not only had it dashed to the floor, but trampled on.

‘I don’t want to hear another word about it,’ Maria said firmly when he’d said this. ‘It was an accident and that’s all there is to it. Everyone has helped and the villagers have been golden.’

She didn’t go on to say that it was as well they had, because her mother seemed incapable of doing anything, including speaking. Since the night the doctor had told them Sam would live, but never work or walk again, she hadn’t spoken one word. Maria didn’t want to burden her daddy with news like that.

Anyway, she’d told herself over and over, it was probably just shock. Everyone knew that shock could do funny things to a body and Sarah would likely get over it in time. Even Bella and Dora had agreed with her over that.

When the word was first out about Sam, the men from the dockyard had rallied around him and had gone to the hospital in droves. Con was a regular, though he felt bad that he was now made gaffer in Sam’s place. Sam told him not to be such a bloody fool and there was not a man alive that he’d rather have taking over from him, but Con couldn’t help feeling guilty about it.

Maria was almost overwhelmed by the people’s concern and their generosity, though she knew the family couldn’t live on their neighbours for ever. Sam knew it too. It was Barney that he appealed to one day to find out the position he was in with regard to the Royal Navy and whether he was entitled to any sort of compensation or a pension.

But the news Barney brought him was not good. Because Sam had been self-employed and just contracted to the navy for the duration of the war, they were under no obligation to compensate him in any way.

‘It’s a bugger, that’s what it is,’ Barney said. ‘Con told me about the noise you went to investigate and I bet it was them IRA bastards tipped you in the drink.’

‘Aye,’ Sam agreed. ‘Someone punched me in the back, all right.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ Barney said. ‘You probably foiled an IRA plot, and certainly saved more that a few ships from being damaged. You should be hailed as a bloody hero, not thrown aside like so much rubbish.’

‘They found no one, Barney,’ Sam reminded him gently.

‘Well, of course they bloody didn’t,’ Barney cried angrily. ‘Those lot would have scarpered not long after you hit the water. What did they expect—that they’d hang about to shake hands?’

‘Barney, we can do nothing about it,’ Sam said. ‘The official line is that I slipped in the water. It was no one’s fault but mine and there is no one to be held accountable for it and that’s that. I suppose the boatyard at Greencastle—’

‘Don’t even ask,’ Barney said. ‘If the boatyard earns anything at all it’s a pittance. Willie has left now, his mind almost gone completely, but in all honesty he had been going that way for some time. I’m going to have to look for something else for myself soon. We could put young Colm, Willie’s grandson, in for now, if you like, to sort of mind the shop? He’s just left school and his mother was asking. Apparently, he’s as mad about boats as his old granddad and would jump at it.’

‘He is,’ Sam said, ‘and he would.’

‘And he’d not need much of a wage,’ Barney said. ‘I mean, he is only fourteen.’

‘It’s something to think about, certainly,’ Sam said. ‘I’d not like the boatyard to lie empty altogether, for it would soon go to rack and ruin, but I understand that you—’

‘Don’t worry about it now,’ Barney told him soothingly, ‘and don’t fret about me. I have a few irons in the fire. You just concentrate on getting well enough to leave here.’

Sean had come over to see Sam as soon as he’d been told of the accident. ‘When it’s all over with my father—and, God knows, he’s in such pain, I hope that’s not long away—will you all come up to live at the house?’

‘I don’t think so, Uncle Sean,’ Maria said. ‘I don’t think Mammy would like to leave here. And I’m worried enough about her as it is.’

Sean thought Maria had cause to worry, for he had been concerned by the vacant look in his sister’s eyes and the way she didn’t seem to hear when a person spoke to her, or even be aware of her surroundings. It was as though she was on the edge of normality and he knew it wouldn’t take much to tip her over into true madness.

Maria knew it too. Somehow she’d have to make a living, but she didn’t know how she could leave her mother day in, day out for hours on end. She wasn’t fit to be left. Dora or Bella would come to sit with her the times Maria went to the hospital, knowing she was worried about leaving her alone. Maria knew that when her father came home, she’d be his main carer too, and she just didn’t know how they were all to survive. The anxiety of this drove sleep from her each night and so her eyes stung with tiredness and there were smudges of blue beneath them.

Sam saw how his daughter suffered and, though his heart ached, he could nothing to ease any of it for her.

By the beginning of the third week, Sarah seemed to have retreated into a world of her own. ‘It is shock, as you suspected,’ Dr Shearer said, when a worried Maria asked him to call. ‘Her mind has shut down because she can’t bear what has happened.’

‘Is it permanent?’ Maria asked.

‘It’s impossible to say,’ the doctor said. ‘The mind is a strange thing. I could arrange for her to go to the psychiatric unit of the District Hospital in Letterkenny for assessment.’

‘A mental hospital?’ Maria said. ‘An asylum?’ Unconsciously she curled her lip.

‘The psychiatric unit of the District Hospital,’ the doctor repeated.

‘She isn’t that bad, is she?’ Maria asked.

‘It isn’t a question of how bad she is, but whether she can be helped further,’ the doctor said.

Maria had a horror of her mother going to such a place. She had a mental picture of what went on in an asylum—and it was an asylum, no matter what fancy name the doctor gave it. She was sure there would be raving lunatics, encased in strait-jackets, or incarcerated in cells, sometimes padded, to prevent them injuring themselves. She wanted her frail and gentle mother nowhere near that, not mixing with mad people.

‘I think she’d be better at home for now, Doctor, but thank you anyway,’ she said.

The doctor shrugged. ‘As you wish, Maria, but remember everyone of us has a breaking point, even you. Don’t allow yourself to go under, for you’ll soon not only have your mother to see to, but your father too.’

Did he think she was unaware of that? Maria shut the door behind him with a bang. She caught her mother up by the hand and, stopping only to wrap a shawl around her, made for the shop.

‘I must get a job,’ she told Dora. ‘But I can’t leave Mammy, and when Daddy comes home it will be worse. What am I to do?’

‘And will your father get nothing from the navy or the Government?’ Dora asked.

‘Barney says not.’

‘And the boatyard?’

‘Limping along just,’ Maria said. ‘Willie’s finished. He’s living with his daughter now.’

‘Barney’s been a grand help to you,’ Dora said.

‘He’s been wonderful,’ Maria agreed warmly. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without him, and that’s the truth. Daddy has quite revised his opinion of him, but that doesn’t help me find a solution to this problem of earning some money.’

Dora was thoughtful that evening and eventually Bella asked what was bothering her.

‘I could see to Sam through the day once he’s home, so that Maria could get a job, but there’s still the problem of Sarah.’

Bella had been heartbroken to see her friend so ill, and hoped and prayed she might one day recover. She’d taken on a girl called Maggie to help in the shop when Maria left. She said, ‘I could maybe have Sarah here during the day. I’m sure I could find her some occupation, weighing and bagging up or some such. Between myself and Maggie, we’ll manage her. After all, Maria can’t do it all.’

Maria was almost overcome by Bella and Dora’s offer and set about finding a job straight away in one of the factories making military uniforms.

However, a few days before she started work, Greg Hopkins came home on leave and soon landed himself at Maria’s door. She smiled, glad to see him and invited him inside.

‘I can’t tell you how heartsore I am,’ he said, and his dark brown eyes were troubled. ‘My mom wrote and told me.’

‘Thank you, Greg,’ Maria said. She saw that Greg’s boyhood had been shed and he was now a man, fine and strapping. He had always been handsome, but his face had once had a sort of soft look about it. Now that was gone. He looked more determined somehow. He was broader shouldered than he’d ever been and carried himself with confidence and assurance. Maria felt a tremor pass down her body as she looked at him.

‘I’m truly sorry that I won’t be around to help you through this,’ Greg said. ‘Pardon me asking this, and please don’t be offended, but how are you managing for money?’

‘I’m not offended,’ Maria said. ‘I know you are asking only out of concern, but you needn’t worry. Daddy had a little saved from his time in the yard and then the villagers have been marvellous. With Bella and Dora’s help, I have been able to look for a job and I am starting at a shirt factory in Derry in a few days’ time. Bella is taking charge of Mammy during the day and Dora will see to Daddy, once he is ready to come home.’

It was said so matter-of-factly, but Greg heard the sadness and weariness in Maria’s voice and his heart turned over in pity for this lovely, young girl with such a heavy burden across her narrow shoulders.

He was certain now he loved and would always love her and wondered how Maria felt about him. He wouldn’t press her, knowing such a lot had happened to her recently, and she was but sixteen yet.

‘Do you ever get out, Maria?’ he asked. ‘Have time for yourself?’

‘What do you think?’ Maria said. ‘Free time is something I don’t have an abundance of.’

‘I have but a few days before I report back,’ Greg said, ‘and you have less time before you start work. It would please me greatly if you let me take you to the pictures this evening. Gone with the Wind is showing in Derry.’

‘Oh,’ Maria said. The pictures! She’d never been and oh, how she’d longed to often. But she shook her head regretfully. ‘I…I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, but…but I just couldn’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘My mother, I couldn’t leave her.’

‘Could someone sit with her, just for the one evening?’

Maria’s mind was racing. Maybe if she got her mother to bed, Dora or Bella could sit in the house until she came back. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ll get word to you if I can work something out.’

A little later she said to Bella, ‘D’you think me awful?’

‘No. Why on earth should I?’

‘You know, going out enjoying myself with Mammy how she is, and as for Daddy…‘

Bella liked young Greg Hopkins, had always liked him, and far better than Barney McPhearson for all the great turnout Maria said he’d made of himself.

‘What difference will it make to either of your parents whether you go out or stay in?’

‘It’s just that I feel guilty.’

‘You think things will improve for your mammy if you are miserable?’

Maria smiled. ‘Of course not.’

‘Well then,’ Bella said. ‘You go with an easy conscience and remember Greg will only have a few days before he is back in the battlefields. I’ll be there if your mammy should need anything.’

Maria had never enjoyed herself so much. The film was wonderful, and when she cried, Greg’s arm had gone around her gently in comfort, as he passed her his snow-white hanky. She’d leant against him and sighed. How good it would be, she thought, to have someone special just for herself, someone to lighten the load a little.

Greg’s heart was singing as the two alighted from the bus in The Square. He’d held Maria’s hand in the cinema at first and she took it again as they walked home, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. At the door, Greg kissed her tenderly on the lips.

‘Will you see me tomorrow?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’

‘Please. We can take a walk out if the weather is kind to us.’

Maria looked into Greg’s clear, brown eyes and knew that she wanted to see him again and yet still she said, ‘No, not in the daytime. Bella and Dora are kind enough to mind Mammy in the evening so that we can have time together. I will not take advantage of that kindness, and before we do anything else tomorrow, I must see my father.’

Greg didn’t argue further, both because he knew Maria had a point and because she had a way of talking, a certain tone that would brook no argument. But the next evening he turned up in his father’s rattly old tip-up truck he’d had the loan of and so they travelled to Derry in style and Maria took Greg’s hand as they went into the hospital.

Sam liked Greg. He knew too how Sarah had felt about him, the hopes she’d had for him and Maria. Greg sat beside him and told Sam about the lighter side of army life and the high jinks they got up to, and Sam laughed till the tears ran down his weathered cheeks. Then he discussed the true war situation with Greg and found his regard for the man growing.

Sam knew he’d be no help to Maria the way he was, and he saw plainly the way Greg thought about the girl. It was portrayed in his eyes. Of course, Maria was young yet, but so much had happened to her in her brief life that her youth mattered less than getting support for her. Greg Hopkins came from a decent respectable family, whom, he knew, would rally round Maria, particularly if she was the one he wanted. Pity the lad had enlisted really.

And as they left the hospital that night, Greg too wished he’d never left Moville and then he’d be around to help Maria, but nothing could be done about that now. They just had to make the most of the time they had.

‘Care for a drink before we go back?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Maria said. ‘I’ve never been in a public house in my life.’

‘That’s because you’ve been born and bred in Moville,’ Greg said. ‘In other parts of the country, the cities in particular, it is a respectable enough place for women to go to.’ Maria still looked doubtful and Greg tucked her arm in his. ‘Trust your Uncle Greg in this,’ he said, and Maria laughed as he ushered her through the door.

Mindful of Maria’s age, Greg brought her just an orange and for himself a Guinness. As they sat at a small table Maria glanced around self-consciously and saw that there were other girls and women in the pub. She began to relax.

Greg hadn’t wanted to press Maria yet, but when she had excused herself for a few minutes at the hospital, Sam had asked him bluntly how he felt about his daughter. When he admitted he loved her to distraction, Sam had advised him to tell her.

‘I know that Maria is barely out of childhood,’ he said. ‘Had things been different, then I would not be advocating this at all, but in the situation she finds herself, her needs have changed. It would ease my mind if you and your family were there for her if she needed you.’

Greg had quite understood Sam’s reasoning, but he guessed Maria didn’t know how he felt about her. How would she know? He saw that she was indeed surprised when he suddenly said, ‘This is a conversation I didn’t intend to have yet, Maria—not for a few years, when you were older.’

Maria was intrigued. ‘What are you talking about, Greg?’

‘Can’t you guess?’ Greg reached across the table and caught up her hand. ‘I love you, Maria, and have done for years. I didn’t speak of it because you were set for a glittering future in Dublin.’

‘Would you have just let me go then?’

‘No,’ Greg said. ‘You’d already given me the name and address of the hostel where you would be staying in one of your letters. I intended going to see you a time or two, when I had leave, so that we had a chance to get to know each other. That can never be now, so I will ask you today. Maria, will you be my girl?’

Maria was taken aback and she stared at Greg open-mouthed for a minute or two.

‘Are you shocked?’ Greg asked. ‘Repulsed?’

‘Shocked, yes,’ Maria admitted. ‘But never repulsed. It’s just I’ve never thought of you that way, Greg.’

‘Could you?’

Maria regarded the man before her, his wide-open face, with eyes now full of trepidation, and a generous mouth. She imagined what it would be like to kiss those lips properly, to be held lovingly in Greg’s arms, and at these thoughts a delicious shiver ran all through her. Greg felt it through the fingers he held and still he waited. ‘I think I could, Greg,’ Maria said at last. ‘Yes, I really think I could.’

Greg leant across the table and gave Maria a gentle kiss on the lips. ‘You’ve made me the happiest man in the world at this minute, and on my next leave maybe we can get engaged?’

‘Aye,’ said Maria. It wasn’t how she’d imagined her future, but then none of it was how she’d imagined.

‘I love you so much, Maria,’ Greg said. ‘There aren’t enough words to tell you.’

Oh, how wonderful it felt, Maria thought, to be loved like that. She laid one of her hands on Greg’s arm and the heat of desire for this beautiful girl filled his body. He knew, however, she’d be pure and innocent so any courtship would have to proceed slowly. He’d had a few dalliances with women since he joined the army; most girls seemed to like men in uniform. None of them had meant anything, including the clingy Nancy Dempsey, who tried to stick to him like a limpet, even after he told her it was over.

Well, there was to be no more of that, he told himself. He would be true now to Maria.

As he left Maria at the door that night, Greg kissed her chastely and tentatively, then, as she responded to him, more passionately. Maria felt as if she was drowning in pleasure. The yearning urges in her body she didn’t fully understand, but they caused her to moan softly. Greg tried to loosen the arms he’d had tight around her, lest she feel how aroused he was and be alarmed by it. But his kisses had left her wanting more, and it was Greg who pulled away first.

‘See you tomorrow, darling.’

‘You will?’

‘Of course. Don’t you start work the day after?’

‘Aye.’

‘And the following day, I’m back at camp, and then who knows? We must grab every minute we can.’

‘I know,’ Maria said miserably. ‘I will miss you so much when you go back.’

‘And I’ll miss you, my love,’ Greg said, kissing her again. ‘But go in now, or Bella will give out to you for keeping her up so late.’

Maria knew Greg spoke good sense. It was neither sensible nor right to alienate Bella. However, when she went inside, it wasn’t Bella sitting in the chair before the fire, but Barney.

He had heard with irritation about the young Greg Hopkins, home from the war and buzzing around Maria’s door. His anger was fuelled that evening when he’d called to take Maria to the hospital and found out she had already gone, and with Greg Hopkins. ‘She called to see you at the boatyard and tell you this,’ Bella had said. ‘And all she saw was young Colm Brannigan, who didn’t seem to know where you were at all.’

‘I had to go to Buncrana to see about a boat,’ Barney said. ‘I did tell the boy. He must have forgotten.’

In fact he had been nowhere near Buncrana, but away in the hills with Seamus, learning about a very lucrative business proposal that he preferred above baby-minding a boatyard. However, he wasn’t sharing that with Bella. She was suspicious enough of him already. What he did say was, ‘Well, I have the night to myself, for I had thought to be taking Maria to the hospital, so if you want to get off, I will listen out for her mother. I need to see Maria tonight about a spot of business.’

‘At this time of night?’

Barney shrugged. ‘I’ve been busy all day and the plan was to talk to her on the way into Derry. Now I am here it is pointless the two of us waiting.’

It was, and Bella was tired. ‘Well, I’ll be off then, if you are sure?’

‘Quite sure,’ Barney told her, and Bella made her way home.

Barney noted Maria’s flushed face and dancing eyes just as she noted the glass beside the large bottle of poteen, which was half empty. She was annoyed to find Barney sitting there as if he owned the place, and even more annoyed when he said he’d sent Bella home.

‘You had no right.’

‘I had every right,’ Barney said. ‘She’d been on her feet all day and was tired, yawning like a good one. I sent her home as a kindness to her, and said I would wait for you. Fine consideration you had for the woman doing you a favour, for you are powerfully late.’

Maria flushed with embarrassment, because she knew Barney had a point. ‘Yes, I didn’t mean it to be such a long night. We went for a drink after we’d been in to see Daddy.’

Barney’s innards were twisted with jealousy for Greg Hopkins, who’d had Maria’s company all night, but he remembered Seamus telling him not to fret when he’d complained before. ‘Your man will be back to soldiering soon,’ he’d said, ‘and the way clear for you.’ So Barney swallowed the anger.

‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ Maria asked him.

‘I needed to talk to you.’

‘It’s very late, as you pointed out,’ Maria said. ‘Couldn’t it have waited?’

‘I didn’t think so,’ Barney said. ‘We need to discuss the boatyard.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Maria said. ‘I didn’t know you’d engaged Colm, Willie’s grandson.’

‘He’s left school now and was for ever asking me if I could get him set on.’

‘Even so,’ Maria said, ‘it should have been discussed.’

‘I talked it over with your father,’ Barney said. ‘All right, perhaps I should have mentioned it to you as well, but the point is the boatyard barely makes enough to pay the boy, so I have got another job.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s delivering supplies over the border to the naval staff.’

‘Oh,’ Maria said again, surprised. ‘Are you employed by the military then?’

‘No, it’s a private concern.’

Barney didn’t elaborate further. He didn’t say he was joining Seamus to smuggle poteen and rationed goods across the border, bringing back petrol, fertiliser and animal feed. All these things were transported under the cover of darkness, as was Seamus’s setting-up of card schools, which now Barney would be involved in. They had special packs of cards and many tricks to fleece the sailors of their money, especially when the sailors’ brains were addled with poteen.

But Maria wasn’t suspicious. In her opinion the services had to have supplies and the job seemed a legitimate one.

‘I’ve told Colm in the afternoons I’ll still be around to deal with anything he can’t handle,’ Barney said.

‘I appreciate that.’

‘Least I can do,’ Barney said, pouring himself another large glass of poteen. He proffered the bottle in Maria’s direction. ‘Want one?’

Maria shook her head. She was more than tired—shattered suddenly—and she really wanted to be rid of Barney so that she could lie in bed and think about the new future Greg had offered her.

Barney saw the dreamy look in Maria’s eyes. Christ! For two pins he call that Greg out and pound him to pulp. And then what? said a little voice in his head. You would be the one up before the magistrate and Maria would never want anything to do with you ever again. Wait till he’s away and you are not before you move in.

‘I’ll be off then,’ he said to Maria. ‘Will I see you tomorrow?’

‘Probably.’

Probably, thought Barney. One time it would have been ‘of course’, but that was before lover boy’s appearance. Well, he would have patience. It wasn’t something he was noted for, but he imagined he could learn it as quick as the next man if he had to.

Early the next evening, Greg took Maria into Derry after she’d taken tea with his family. Maria hadn’t wanted to go to tea, but Greg had insisted. Greg’s parents and his two brothers and two sisters were welcoming, and when Maria left, she knew they would accept her into their family with little or no trouble.

They went again to a cinema in Derry to see The Road to Singapore, which starred Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. Maria had never heard of them, but Greg told her these were the names of big stars that were in the major films of the time. Maria enjoyed the film immensely.

At the door, Greg took Maria in his arms and kissed her neck and eyes before moving to her lips. This time his tongue parted her lips gently and sent sharp shafts of desire that she didn’t fully understand shooting through her body. She gasped with the shock of it, the beginnings of sexual awareness.

‘I love you, Greg!’ She didn’t know where the words came from. She knew she meant them—that with every fibre of her being she loved Greg Hopkins.

Greg was overjoyed. ‘I love you, Maria Foley, with every bit of me. You mean everything to me.’

They kissed and kissed again. Greg kept his arms around Maria though his hands tingled to explore every inch of her luscious body.

As Maria donned the overall and hat that every vestige of hair had to be tucked beneath, and began to work on the coarse army garb on the heavy machines, she couldn’t help contrasting her life now with the life she’d once had offered to her. This work was mind-blowingly boring. The heat in the factory was stifling, and the lint floating in the air stung her eyes and made her sneeze and cough.

But the other girls made it all worthwhile. They laughed and joked, seeming not to care for the inconveniences.

‘All I care about is the money,’ Joanne, the girl sitting next to Maria, said. ‘Everything else is secondary to that. What do you say, Maria?’

‘I feel the same,’ Maria said.

‘And we get a good whack for what we do when all is said and done,’ Joanne said.

They did. It was piecework and if you were a fast worker, you could make as much as five or six pounds a week. If they can put up with it then so can I, Maria thought determinedly. She laughed and joked with the best of them and found it helped the day pass quicker.

Nevertheless, she was pleased and relieved when the factory’s blast declared the end of that first day for she felt incredibly weary. ‘Someone’s going to be in the pink all right,’ shouted a woman from the head of the queue shuffling towards the factory gate. ‘There’s a soldier boy waiting for someone.’

Maria’s heart leapt. She shuffled forward eagerly. Soon she was through the gate and Greg was in front of her. Once she was in his arms, tiredness vanished as if it had never been and they were kissing hungrily despite the people passing along the road. No one seemed to mind. In fact it seemed to lighten the dismal late October day to see a couple so much in love.

Maria and Greg were oblivious to everyone but each other.

‘I’m taking you for a meal tonight,’ Greg said, and as Maria was about to protest, he put up his hand. ‘No arguments,’ he said. ‘I have cleared it with Bella and Dora, and tonight, as it is my last night, they are seeing to your mother. Come on, we have a few precious hours together—let’s not spend them any other way than enjoying ourselves.’

And they did enjoy themselves. Greg was good fun and well read. He had an opinion on most subjects, and by the end of the meal, Maria couldn’t think how the hours had sped so fast.

She clung to him that night as he saw her home, knowing she’d not see him for weeks, even months. She could cope with that, but what she fretted about was that Greg would be in some battleground, being blown or shot to bits.

‘Please, please be careful,’ she begged him, as they cuddled together.

‘I will, my darling,’ Greg said between the little kisses he was planting on her lips and eyes. ‘Now, I have something to come home to, someone I love so much it hurts, I will take extra care.’

Greg’s kisses sent Maria’s senses reeling. His hands gently caressing her body felt so right. She made no protest, but kissed him passionately—so passionately that once again Greg had to pull back and his voice was husky as he said, ‘Go on now in, before I forget myself.’

‘I wouldn’t mind.’

‘You don’t know what you’re saying,’ Greg said with a smile. ‘But don’t worry, I’d never show such disrespect for the girl I want to be my wife.’

‘Oh, Greg!’

Greg gave Maria one last, lingering kiss and then backed away from her with difficulty. He had to leave the next morning before dawn and Maria didn’t try to delay him. She watched him walk away from her. When he reached The Square he stopped to wave, and she returned the wave before turning away and going inside.

CHAPTER FOUR

The next week, Sam was declared fit to come home. Barney organised the whole thing. He also brought Sam’s bed downstairs, and accompanied Maria to the hospital to bring her father home in the ambulance.

Maria had high hopes that once her father was back, Sarah might take a grip on herself. However, when Sarah saw her crippled husband carried into the house and laid in the bed, the guilt that she’d put him there, that it was her prayers and supplications that had brought Sam to this state, threatened to overwhelm her. She began to rock herself backwards and forwards in the chair and the noise of her keening filled the house as tears steamed from her eyes.

Dora, who had been minding Sarah while Maria was at the hospital, wrapped Sarah in her arms. Sam’s eyes went from his wife to Maria. Maria had said nothing about the mental state of her mother and had just explained her absence at the hospital by saying she wasn’t well, though other visitors had hinted how Sarah was. It was one thing hearing about it, however, and quite another seeing it. He asked himself how he expected Maria to cope with the two of them—he a helpless cripple and Sarah the way she was. It was too much for anyone, least of all a young girl.

‘Holy Mother of God, Maria, I’m so sorry to bring this trouble upon you,’ he said sorrowfully.

‘It’s not of your making, Daddy,’ Maria said. ‘Don’t fret yourself.’

‘Child, dear, it would have been better if I had died in the dock that night.’

‘Now, Daddy, we’ll have none of that talk, and you too, Mammy,’ she went on, turning to her mother, still crying and clasped in Dora’s arms. ‘Come on now, That’s enough. Tears never did a bit of good anyway.’

Sarah did try. The gulping sobs changed to hiccups and then dried up altogether.

Into the silence, Barney said, ‘You only have to ask if you need help. If there is anything, if I can do it for you, then I will.’

‘Thank you, Barney,’ Maria said. She was grateful, because a person never knew when she might have need of a big, strapping man.

In time, Maria got into the swing of caring for her parents. She’d wash and change her father and help Sarah to dress before dropping her off at Bella’s. Then she’d make for the bus, while Dora would go next door to see to Sam. On Maria’s return, she would collect her mother and take her home, then get a meal ready for them. With the meal eaten and the washing-up done, she would wash and change her father and get both him and Sarah ready for bed.

She managed, just, but it was exhausting. The job was the saving of her sanity. She was incredibly grateful to Bella for taking on the care of her mother, not sure if she could do it day in, day out. She only knew she was glad to go into the factory and see the other girls, have a laugh and joke and forget her problems for a while.

She was particularly close to Joanne, with whom she worked side by side. Maria had never had a friend before, for she had lost all those she had made at school when she had been working so single-mindedly for the scholarship. Joanne was four years older than Maria, Derry born and bred, perky, full of fun and just what Maria needed. Joanne thought Maria looked vulnerable, which brought out a protective streak in her.

Besides Joanna, there plenty more willing to be friends with Maria. She had never told them at work about how her life was, but there were others from Moville who had. In fact, Sam’s accident had been the talk of the place. News of an accident of such magnitude cannot be kept from people, though because it had happened in a military establishment, in a country at war, it had never made the papers.

‘Let me get this right,’ said one woman, exchanging news in the street with a neighbour, a few days after Sam’s accident, ‘the man’s a cripple, the woman is off her head and there is only the one daughter to see to them all?’

‘That’s about the strength of it, all right,’ said the other woman. ‘And she is only sixteen and not big, you know—slight, like. She looks even younger than she is. And then before all this, she had a glittering future handed to her and then it was snatched away.’ And she went on to explain about the scholarship.

‘Ah, God help her,’ said the first woman.

This was echoed by many others. By the time Maria started her job in the factory, most of her new colleagues knew all about her and were determined to make the girl welcome. Maria had felt their friendship wash over her from the first day, when she had boarded the bus with neighbours and friends she’d known all her life. They patted her on the back, smiled and wished her well. Then, in the factory, many greeted her as if they had known her for years.

When Joanne asked her out with a group of them one night, though, Maria shook her head. ‘I couldn’t, honestly.’

‘I know how you are placed—’ Joanne said—‘well, most of it anyway—but do you never have time off?’ ‘No, not really.’

‘What about lover boy, who met you that time?’ Joanne persisted. ‘You weren’t making for the bus that night, I bet’

‘That was different,’ Maria said. ‘Greg had been home on leave and that was his last night. Dora, who runs the store and post office with her daughter, Bella, went in and sat with my parents for me. Bella already looks after Mammy in the day and Dora sees to my father so I really can’t ask them to do more as a regular thing. It isn’t easy, you see, because my mother can be awkward and difficult—like a child, you know—and my father is almost completely helpless.’

‘You poor cow.’

The sympathy in Joanne’s voice was nearly Maria’s undoing. She felt tears stinging the back of her throat. She blinked rapidly and willed them not to fall, and her voice was husky as she said, ‘Oh, it’s not so bad. I am getting used to it. And we have marvellous neighbours. A young man that used to work for Daddy in the boatyard comes in almost every night, I suppose on his way to the pub, to see my father. Daddy looks forward to it so much. I think he misses the company of men, you know, and of course the day is a long one for him. But Barney chats to him and they have a few drinks and a game of cards before Barney is on his way again.’

‘It is good to have people like that around you,’ Joanne said. ‘God knows, you need it,’

Maria could only agree and admit to herself that she had been astounded by Barney’s thoughtfulness.

‘Well, I won’t press you to go out with us,’ Joanne said, ‘or keep asking, because there is nothing so annoying, but I want you to know that you would be welcome any time to come out with the crowd, if the opportunity should ever present itself. Or if things start to get on top of you and you need a night out, all you have to do is shout and I will drop everything to give you a good time, a bloody good time because you deserve it.’

Behind the ensuing laughter there was hint of tears because Maria had been so moved by the understanding in Joanne’s voice. She knew she was lucky to work with such lovely people.

In mid-November, Maria’s grandfather gave up his fight for life and slipped away at home and in his own bed as he’d wanted to.

‘I can’t possibly go,’ Maria said, as she read the telegram.

‘Of course you must go,’ Bella said.

‘How can I?’ Maria demanded. ‘I can’t leave Mammy and Daddy overnight, and that’s what it would mean. I can’t and won’t have you and your mother do more. You do enough already. Uncle Sean will understand and I’ll send a telegram now and a Mass card later that I will put a letter inside.’

Bella said nothing. She was realising that Sarah was one body’s work. It took her and Maggie all their time to watch her and run the shop and post office; she’d not like to take the responsibility of having her overnight.

Sean did understand what Maria was going through and as soon as he’d settled everything, he went up to visit them.

Maria was delighted to see him, glad he’d travelled on Friday to stay the weekend for she couldn’t really afford to lose pay and maybe her job by taking time off. Sean was appalled by the whole set-up. Heartbroken though he was to see his only surviving sister so ill, and his brother-in-law crippled for life, his sympathies lay with Maria.

Sean caught Sam’s eyes on Maria often that weekend as she busied about and Sean knew he felt bad about the things she had to do for him.

‘What can I do to help?’ he asked Maria.

‘Talk to Daddy,’ Maria said quietly. ‘I’m sure he must get lonesome and frustrated, though he never complains. Barney comes most evenings and they have a jar, play cards sometimes, but for all that it’s a long day for him, though Dora does her best.’

‘You’ll have to keep me abreast of things,’ Sam said to Sean, ‘for I have no news. One day for me is very like the one that went before and the ones yet to come. Barney tells me how things are now and again. Like he says, the Americans will be in the war soon.’

Sean nodded. ‘Don’t see how they’re able to stay out of it now,’ he said. ‘They’re ready anyway. Been that way for months.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Well, they have bases built already,’ Sean said. ‘There’s one the other side of Lough Erne. I can see it plainly from the farm. And, what’s more, they’re dressed in the same uniform as the British, but they’re American all right. You only have to hear them talk.’

‘Would you believe it?’

‘One of my neighbours, who works in Derry, said there’s another one there too. Probably peppered all over, if the truth was told.’

‘Aye,’ Sam said. ‘Oh, here’s Barney, look.’ As the man came in the door he added quietly, ‘He’s been golden, so he has. Hardly misses an evening.’

Barney approached the bed, glad to see Sam so animated by Sean’s visit. Sean had already hauled Sam into a sitting position, supported by the pillows, and when Barney produced the bottle of poteen from his pocket Maria didn’t say a word, but got the glasses from the cupboard.

The first time Barney had suggested letting Sam have a drink, she’d been against it. ‘He’s always been a moderate drinker,’ she said. ‘He could take it or leave it.’ Not that he had the chance of much poteen, though she knew he liked a sip if he did.

‘Maybe he could take it or leave it when he had a pair of legs that worked,’ Barney said, ‘or a job of work to occupy him and support his family. For God’s sake, Maria, what has he now that you can deny him a bit of pleasure?’

There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that Maria could say to that and she didn’t try. Nor did she ask where Barney got the bottles from. Sometimes it was better not to know those things. Anyway, with her father entertained, she could get her mother into bed, which wasn’t always easy. Sometimes it took all Maria’s powers of coaxing to get her to undress, put on her nightdress and get between the sheets. ‘Come on, Mammy,’ she’d say to her mother, who’d be standing resolute, arms folded over her chest and her mouth in a mutinous line. ‘Come on, to please me.’

Sometimes, when she was tired and had a mountain of things waiting for her to attend to in the kitchen, she wasn’t so patient. ‘For God’s sake, Mammy, will you stop this and get your clothes off.’

She always felt mean when she’d shouted at her mother. If her mother looked at her with eyes filled with reproach it was bad enough, but sometimes her bottom lip would tremble and she’d begin to cry. Maria would be consumed with shame and it would take longer than ever to settle Sarah for the night.

‘Will you be off to England now that Granddaddy is dead?’ Maria asked her uncle that first night as they sat before the fire with Barney long gone and Sam fast asleep.

Sean was a wee while answering. The situation in the house worried him. Maria seemed to be working herself to death. How could he swan off to England as if it was no concern of his?

‘Not yet awhile,’ he said eventually. ‘Not while you are doing everything here. Now Daddy is gone, I’ll come up more at the weekends and share the load. While I’m here, you don’t have to worry about Sam, I’ll see to him.’

‘You don’t have to,’ Maria said. ‘Really you don’t.’

‘I do,’ Sean said firmly.

‘I’d hate to think of you putting your plans on hold again.’

‘It won’t be for ever,’ Sean said firmly. ‘Tell me about the young man Sam mentioned. Thinks a lot of him, he does.’

The faint blush that flooded Maria’s face amused Sean, but there was no doubt in his mind that this was the one for her when she said, ‘Greg—that’s his name. He’s wonderful, tremendous, so he is, but he is in the army.’

‘And…?’ Sean prompted.

‘He wants to get engaged the next leave he gets.’

‘And you?’

‘Oh, yes, I want it too,’ Maria said. ‘I know I’m young, though I hardly feel it, but I know in my heart that Greg is the one for me. Marriage will be difficult, I know, even after the war, with Mammy and Daddy still to see to, but he assures me it can be done. His family all seemed to like me, the one time I went to tea. In every letter Greg tells me to visit them, but,’ Maria spread her hands helplessly, ‘I haven’t been able to.’

‘You can now. I’ll be here,’ Sean said. ‘And that is one thing I insist on.’

‘I can’t leave you with everything.’

‘Maria, Sarah is my own dear wee sister,’ Sean said. ‘I will always think of her that way and though I am heartbroken to see her how she is, I still love her. She too is one of life’s casualties. Sam is also a fine man, one I am proud to know and one I knew would take care of my sister. To the best of his ability he has, and helped rear you to the fine young woman you are. It would be no hardship to me to care for them for an hour or two while you visit your intended in-laws.’

‘Ah, Uncle Sean, you’re so good,’ Maria said, her voice breaking.

Sean leant over and patted her knee. ‘It’s what uncles are for, dear child,’ he said.

Maria did go to see the Hopkins family the next Sunday afternoon, full of trepidation going alone, although after Mass that morning she had asked Greg’s mother if she might call up that afternoon. Once in the house she was soon put at her ease. The whole family welcomed her as warmly as they had done the last time. It was good to talk about Greg openly, with people who loved him and worried about him as much as she did.

‘I doubt he’ll be home for Christmas,’ his mother, Ellie, said.

‘No,’ Maria said. ‘He said the same to me in the last letter.’

‘Some special training he’s into,’ his father explained. ‘Not that he was able to say much about it.’ He saw Maria’s eyes widen. ‘Reading between the lines, that’s what I think. We have a sort of code going between us two and you can surmise a lot by that.’

‘At least while he’s at training for whatever it is, he’s safe,’ his mother said with satisfaction. ‘That’s one blessing, anyway.’

‘Oh, aye,’ Maria agreed fervently. ‘For my money, he could stay for the duration.’

But he wouldn’t, of course. What could he be training for? Wasn’t he already trained? Dear God, what horrors were in store for him?

‘Now stop it, Maria,’ Sean said firmly when she said this to him on her return. ‘You have enough to worry about without thinking up further things. It might be nothing, just some notion his father has in his head.’

But Maria knew it wasn’t. Didn’t he mention the code they had? But, she couldn’t burden Sean further. He had to catch the bus to Derry soon after, anyway.

‘Now listen,’ he said to Maria as he prepared to leave. ‘I shan’t be over next week, but I will be able to the weekend after. Is that all right with you?’

‘Anytime I can see you will be fine,’ Maria said in thankfulness.

The following Friday Maria had to be sharp with her mother to get her to leave Bella and the shop. She even had to take her hand to prevent her running back to it once they were in the street.

‘For God’s sake, Mammy, will you stop it,’ she said. ‘I’m too tired, cold and hungry for this carry-on. I need to get into the warm, have a sit by the fire and a cup of tea to keep me going till the tea’s cooked and you are not helping, not one bit.’

Some of what Maria had said seemed to penetrate Sarah’s brain and she stopped pulling at her hand and walked calmly enough by her side, but Sam saw his daughter’s face bleached white with tiredness as she bade Dora goodnight, and he felt consumed by shame.

He was always glad of Barney’s company and even more glad of the poteen he brought. He knew that he was drinking far too much of it at times, but he needed it to blur the edges of his God-awful life.

That Sunday, Maria like millions of others, learnt of the bombing of the American Fleet by the Japanese at a place called Pearl Harbor.

Sam recalled the conversation he’d had with Sean just the previous week. ‘The American’s will be in now, whether they like it or not,’ he said to Maria.

‘Many say it’s about time.’

‘Aye, but I’d rather fight a Jerry or a bloody Eyetie than a Nip any day,’ Sam said. ‘Not bloody human, those Nips.’

Maria couldn’t agree more. She wondered if American involvement would affect those in Britain and how, and seriously hoped not. She knew Greg had been based in St George’s Barracks, Sutton Coldfield, but did much of his training in Sutton Park and another place called Cannock Chase, because he’d told her this much. She hoped he was still there, still safe.

Maria wasn’t looking forward to Christmas one bit. She remembered other years when she would help her mother bake the cakes and mince pies, and boil the puddings. The sweet, spicy smell would linger in the air for days and they would sing carols together as they decorated the house with home-made streamers.

This year there was nothing. She was in no mood for making streamers, never mind finding the time to drape them around the room. She’d had no time either to make up any of the usual goodies and it was hard not to feel depressed about it, especially as there was no news of Greg coming home.

Then, the Friday before Christmas, 19 December, the men came. Con had visited before quite a few times, but this was every man that Sam had engaged to work in the docks. Many brought things from their wives - mince pies, a Christmas cake. Another brought a pudding, one had a cherry cake, another sausage rolls, while two sent half a dozen fresh duck eggs. Each of the men had a bottle or two in his hand.

Maria was overwhelmed with the men’s generosity, but just as delighted that they took time to talk with her father. She busied herself bringing out more chairs and getting glasses for them all. Soon a bluish fug of tobacco smoke hung in the air, mixed with the smell of whiskey and poteen. Maria tackled a pile of ironing and listened to the chatter in the room. The voices rose and fell, occasionally laughter bursting into the air. Maria saw how her father’s face was animated and knew she had been right: it was the company of men he missed.

Maria had given up her lunch hour to search Derry for presents, though the shops were not well stocked at all. She’d posted Greg’s presents early: socks, a scarf, a large bar of chocolate, twenty cigarettes and a packet of the bull’s-eyes he liked so much.

She also managed to get a soft shawl for Dora, fleece-lined slippers for Bella, and socks and hankies for Barney. For her father she had a new pipe and tobacco and a large bottle of whiskey.

She expected nothing from Greg but a card, if he was able to get one, so she was intrigued to receive a parcel the day before Christmas Eve. She lifted it down from the mantelpiece where Dora had put it, aware of the woman hovering, as anxious as she was to find out what was in it.

When Maria exposed the ring box, she felt as if her heart had stopped beating and she slowly opened it up. The ring was a diamond solitaire and so beautiful it took her breath away.

My Darling, darling Maria,

I can wait no longer to give you this. I know girls often like to choose their own rings, but I want you to wear this now so that everyone can see your heart belongs to me. I had to guess the size, so if it’s wrong, wear it round your neck till I come home. My beloved Maria, there aren’t enough words to tell you how much I love you and miss you, and how I lie in bed each night and go over and over the time we spent together. I may get leave in the spring—I don’t know. They tell us nothing, but you may be sure I will be hotfooting down to you as soon as I ever can.

There was more, much more, but the tears seeped from Maria’s eyes as she put the ring on, twisting her hand this way and that so the diamond sparkled as the lights caught it.

‘Ah, God, will you look at that. D’you see, Sam?’ Dora cried.

‘Come nearer, child,’ Sam said, taking Maria’s hand as she drew closer.

Maria was hesitant with her father. Maybe he’d be hurt by this sign that Maria was leaving childhood behind; maybe he’d feel his permission should have been asked.

However, when she said this, her father smiled and squeezed her hand. ‘He did ask me, child, the time he came into hospital, when you took yourself off to powder your nose. He told me he’d loved you from the first time he’d seen you, but knew you were too young for him to speak and wouldn’t have done it just yet if things had gone to plan. Child, I want you to have a good, caring man by your side to share this burden you have taken on. Oh, I know Greg is in the army just now, but the war will not last for ever. He is a fine young man, one to be proud of, and he will make you a good husband.’

‘Thank you, Daddy.’

Maria doubted her mother took in the significance of the ring, but Barney did and he was shocked. He hadn’t been aware the relationship had gone so far in the short space of time they’d had together, for Maria had never mentioned to Barney that she was writing to Greg, nor that she’d taken to visiting Greg’s family.

‘Can you not be happy for me, Barney?’ she asked, noting his sullen face.

Barney could hardly tell her the truth. ‘You’re too young, far too young,’ he said.

‘For marriage, maybe,’ Maria said, ‘but this is engagement only.’

But it was enough. Barney felt sick to the pit of his stomach. ‘I have a present for you too,’ he said grudgingly, ‘though you’ll hardly want it now.’

‘Of course I will.’

Later, Maria looked at the dainty gold locket on the fine chain and thanked Barney with a peck on his cheek, though she wondered if she had been wise to accept it. It was like the gift a boy or man would give to his girlfriend. Surely Barney didn’t think…he couldn’t imagine…He came nearly every night to see her father and that was all, she told herself. He’d never given her more than a cursory glance. He had no one to advise him that the locket was an unsuitable gift, that was all it was. She dropped the locket in the drawer of her dressing table and threaded the ring on the chain, for it was rather large for her finger and she didn’t want to wear it openly till Greg was home and the engagement announced properly.

There was great jollification on New Year’s Eve at Maria’s house. The men who’d come before Christmas were joined by several others carrying instruments—a fiddle, banjo, accordion and bodhrán. They played the polkas and jigs they’d learnt in childhood.

Maria joined her female neighbours at the dancing. Then suddenly, as she wheeled around the room, she was caught up around the waist by one of the men not playing. Other men took hold of women until the whole room was a mass of people dancing. Even Bella, Maria saw, was inveigled into getting on her feet.

Sarah seemed to be enjoying herself as she sat before the fire, a smile playing about her mouth, and Sam’s face was one beam of delight. Eventually Maria stopped, a rosy hue to her face and gasping a little with the unaccustomed exertion.

‘Phew, I need a drink,’ she said to Dora, who was sitting by the table laid with goodies.

‘Another one has need of a drink too,’ Dora said grimly, indicating Con’s wife, sour-faced Brenda. ‘She has upset half the room and has watched every drop that has passed Con’s lips. Will you give her some stiff glasses of poteen to maybe loosen her up a bit? Anyway, the face on her would turn the milk sour.’

Maria laughed. ‘Oh, Dora, I couldn’t, and maybe she’d be worse if she had the drink on her.’

‘She couldn’t be worse, and if you care about Con at all, do all in your power to get that woman totally bottled,’ Dora said with an emphatic nod. ‘I’ll help you.’

Maria, Dora, and Bella—who joined in, seeing what they were at—plied the woman with drinks all night. In the end Con nearly had to carry her home. ‘At least she went with a smile on her face,’ Bella remarked.

‘Aye, but I wouldn’t have her head in the morning.’

‘It is New Year’s Eve,’ Bella remarked. ‘They’ll be a fair few the same.’

‘Aye, and one of them my father,’ Maria remarked. ‘Good job I’ve kept my wits about me for I have the feeling Mammy will be the very devil to settle tonight too.’

Cold and blustery weather heralded 1942. First, there was snow descending from the leaden skies like a blanket of white, the blustery winds causing drifts as high as the windowsills, and piling on the roads to freeze at night, turning the place into a skating rink. The thaw in February was followed by rain, peppering the roads like bullets, driven by powerful winds to hammer on the windows and soak any unfortunate caught out in it in seconds.

Maria was glad to reach the mugginess and doubtful heat of the workroom. Often her sodden coat, like many others, would steam over the gas fire in the staff room, especially lit for that purpose.

The girls all grumbled about the weather. ‘It’s every day the bloody same,’ Joanne said morosely. ‘And the constant grey skies would put years on a body.’

‘I must admit, I am fed up constantly feeling damp,’ Maria said. ‘The spring can’t come soon enough for me.’

But the weather ceased to matter the day Maria got the letter inside the birthday card from Greg, saying there was every likelihood he would get a spot of leave towards the end of the month. That day she had met the postman on the way to the bus stop and read the letter on the way to work.

‘What’s up with you?’ Joanne asked as she took her place beside her in the workroom. ‘You’ve got a dirty great smile plastered over your face.’

‘I got a letter from Greg,’ Maria said. ‘He thinks he’ll get leave soon.’

‘Embarkation leave, is it?’ another asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Maria said. ‘Probably. But I am not going to think of that. All I am going to concentrate on is my Greg coming home.’

She almost told them then about the ring, but she made herself wait. No one but her parents, Bella, Dora, Barney and Greg’s family had actually seen it yet. Maria wanted to have a bit of a ‘do’ when Greg came home and announce the engagement properly. When she had suggested this in a letter, he had been all for it, so she wasn’t going to spoil it now by telling, or showing anyone. She knew it would be all around the factory by lunch time.

In St George’s Army Barracks, Sutton Coldfield, Greg was lying on his bunk thinking of Maria and how wonderful she was, when the sergeant strode into the room. Greg leapt to his feet

‘Commander wants to see you, Hopkins,’ the sergeant said. ‘What you been up to lad?’

‘Nothing, Sarge.’ Greg could think of nothing he had done wrong.

‘Well, go and find out quick,’ the sergeant said. ‘Don’t keep him waiting.’

Greg thought back over the last few days for anything he might have done or said that was bad enough to be summoned by his commanding officer, but he could still think of nothing. Before he announced his presence he checked his boots, cleaning the toecaps with spit and a hanky, pulled his belt in, straightened his tie and knocked on the door with some trepidation.

‘Come in!’

As Greg opened the door and stepped in, the two people sitting in chairs across from the commanding officer turned. The big bullish man Greg had never seen before, but the girl beside him was Nancy Dempsey, a girl he hadn’t clapped eyes on for five months. This wasn’t the Nancy he knew, however. No mischievous light danced behind those black eyes, and there was no sulky pout to the lip. In fact her lip was split right open and her whole face was swollen and bruised. Greg stared at the man beside her with distaste. He had no time for men who raised their fists to women.

And when Nancy spoke her voice was thick and indistinct. ‘I’m sorry, Greg, really I am.’

Then Greg noticed something else. Beneath Nancy’s coat was a definite protruding small bump. His head was reeling, his mind screaming denial.

‘Well, Hopkins,’ the officer said in clipped tones. ‘Have you any idea why Mr Dempsey and his daughter are here?’

‘Yes, sir…I mean, no, sir.’

‘What d’you mean, “No, sir”?’ the man demanded. ‘I’ll tell you what, sir. You took my daughter down and now I want to know what you are going to do about it.’

‘Are you sure it was Hopkins?’ The question was directed at Nancy, but it was her father who answered.

‘Oh, it were him, all right. All over her like a rash last summer and into the autumn too, so her friends said. Then he dumped her like, but not before he filled her belly. She wouldn’t tell me straight off. I had to beat her near black and blue before she let on it were him, like.’

‘All right, Mr Dempsey,’ the commanding officer said sharply. He looked at Greg. ‘Do you deny this?’

He couldn’t deny it, nor say before this bully of a man that Nancy had been mad for it, begging him. He’d taken precautions every time till the time he’d gone to tell her it was really and truly over, and had taken nothing with him. ‘Just one last time to remember you by,’ she’d begged, and then stupidly, because he felt sorry for her, he had obliged.

He felt sick to the base of his stomach. Almighty Christ, what was he to do? But he knew what he had to do. There was no other course open to him. ‘I’ll marry her,’ he said. Then, because that sounded churlish and unkind, he turned to Nancy. ‘Don’t worry, Nancy, I’ll not let you down. I’ll marry you.’

‘The chaplain can do the honours,’ the commanding officer said.

‘I must go home first, sir,’ Greg said, ‘to tell my parents.’ But it wasn’t his parents he had to tell most urgently, it was Maria. Maria, that he loved with all his heart and soul and mind, that he had lost for ever. He knew he would be dealing her a terrific blow and he didn’t think he could bear her pain too; his own was making it difficult for him to draw breath.

The commanding officer surmised a lot by the look in young Hopkins’s eyes, for it wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened. ‘When does your leave start?’

‘In two days’ time, sir.’

‘Take it from tonight,’ the officer said. ‘I’ll square it, don’t worry. Tell your parents, then come straight back here. It’s best the matter is done as speedily as possible.’

‘You won’t lose by it, Greg,’ Nancy said. She was imploring him to look at her with eyes of love and not duty, but Greg was dying inside, shrivelling up. ‘I’ll be a good wife to you, Greg,’ she went on in desperation, ‘and our mom says I’m a tidy cook, like.’

Shut your mouth, you sodding stupid bitch! Greg gasped. For a moment he thought he’d spoken the words aloud.

‘You are dismissed, Hopkins,’ the officer said.

Tears were smarting in his eyes as Nancy grabbed his hand. ‘It will be all right, won’t it, Greg?’

He couldn’t speak, not without bawling like a baby. He said nothing, but pulled his hand away and left the room. He went outside the barracks, banged his head against the brick wall and he cried his eyes out.

CHAPTER FIVE

Despite losing pay, and her anxiety to keep in favour at work, Maria had taken the day off. Greg had told her what time the bus would stop in The Square. He could see her jumping from one foot to the other in excitement as the bus pulled in. He had barely left the vehicle when she launched herself at him, nearly overbalancing him, as he had a case in one hand.

‘Oh, Greg, I’ve missed you and I love you so much.’

Greg just stood and looked at Maria. She cried, ‘Put your arms around me, for God’s sake. It’s what I’ve longed for, for weeks.’

His heart like lead, Greg put his arms around the girl he loved beyond all others. ‘Maria, we must talk.’

‘Of course we must,’ Maria said. ‘Shall we go back?’

‘No, not home, somewhere quiet.’

‘There’s only Daddy. Bella has Mammy till I go back.’

Was there nowhere in this whole God-damned place that they could be alone so that Greg could tell the lovely, wonderful girl that he was casting her aside for another? ‘Maria, I need a private place.’

So did Maria. She wanted to run her fingers through his regulation short hair, to trace the lines of his face with her kisses, and kiss his delicious lips until she was dizzy. And she wanted him to kiss her eyes and her throat in the way that caused her to moan in ecstasy as the yearning excitement mounted in her. Then she wanted to feel his lips on hers, his tongue darting in and out of her mouth, his hands feeling every bit of her.

Suddenly, she knew the place. ‘We’ll go to the boatyard,’ she cried.

‘Is there no one there? Colm…?’

‘Colm has the flu. He hasn’t been there the last two days. He sent word down. There’s even a heater there.’

Greg sighed. ‘That’s the place then.’

‘Do you want to leave your case in the house as we pass?’

‘No,’ Greg said. He wanted to go nowhere and make small talk with anyone till he’d told his girl what he’d come to tell her. ‘No, it’s OK, really.’

They didn’t take the coastal path; the wind was so fierce they’d be in danger of being plucked off it and flung into the lough. Even through the town, the wind gusting around them made conversation difficult, but Greg was glad of it. Maria had linked arms with him and the case dragged from his other hand as they toiled up the slight hill to Greencastle.

The boatyard was, as Maria had said, deserted, and she lifted the large stone beside the door, extracted the key and let them in. Greg was glad to be out of the wind, but the workroom was icy.

‘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.’

‘Dad, I’m not proud of this, any of it,’ Greg said. ‘But, for God’s sake, what was I to do? I’d finished with Nancy long before I declared myself to Maria and since that moment I have been true to her. But Nancy is pregnant with my child, Dad. I can’t desert her.’

‘Aye, I see that. It’s a dreadful thing you did to that girl too.’

‘Her father’s beaten her black and blue.’

Greg’s father imagined how the man would feel, how he would react if one of his daughters came home with the news she was with child. God, it didn’t bear thinking about.

But what of his son? Should he allow him to come here, flaunting his sin for all to see, showing a bad example to his siblings and further heartache for Maria?

‘Your mother and me have talked this over, Greg,’ he said. ‘You are right, you must marry this Nancy, but we don’t want to see either her or you ever again.’

‘What are you saying, Dad?’

‘I’m saying you are not welcome here. Go back to England, do your duty by this girl and sever connections with your home. As far as your mother and me are concerned, by your actions and for the grave hurt you have caused a great deal of people, you can no longer regard yourself as a son of ours.’

Greg almost staggered from the room. He could scarcely believe the words his father had spoken. He’d always thought whatever he did, or said, they’d always love him, forgive him and welcome him. He’d never envisaged a time when he might be estranged from his parents—disagree with them, certainly, but exiled from home, never.

For Christ’s sake, he was their eldest son. He sought out his mother, but her eyes were cold, her face set as she looked at him. ‘I thought your father had spoken to you.’

‘He has, Mom.’

‘Well then?’

‘I thought-’

‘You thought I would be different. Let me tell you, Greg, you have cut me to the quick and I am engulfed with shame for the wrong you have done Maria and also, to a lesser extent, the piece you are marrying. Do you think I want you here after that, your brothers emulating you and your sisters thinking this is the way to behave? No, Greg. You made your bed and now you must lie in it. You can have one day here to get over the travelling and tomorrow you go back, and I don’t want to see, or hear from you again.’

‘Mom—’

‘It’s my last word on the subject.’

The ring plopped through the letterbox, the day after Greg left. Greg’s mother opened the envelope and held the ring in the palm of her hand. She cried for Maria and the dream that had come crashing down on her head.

Knowing none of this, Maria skulked about the house for the first few days after seeing Greg, terrified of bumping into him.

Each day she’d wake with a heavy heart after a fitful sleep. It was as if she’d fallen into a pit of sadness and it tainted everything she did and said. Food tasted like sawdust, though the lump in her throat prevented her eating anything much. Never was she more glad of work, glad of the chatter of the girls that covered her own silence, and glad of the weary feeling after work, though she knew weariness alone didn’t necessarily signify a decent night’s sleep

She was worried which Mass Greg would attend on Sunday and she slipped into the one at nine o’clock, and looked around surreptitiously, but she was seen by one of Greg’s sisters. None of Greg’s brothers or sisters had been told about Greg, but they all knew. By eavesdropping on the raised voices, they’d put two and two together and, if there should be any doubt, one of them found the ring in the envelope that their mother had stuck behind the clock on the mantelpiece.

Now, that same girl, Josephine, sidled up to Maria as soon as the Mass was over, guessing why she was so edgy. ‘Greg’s gone,’ she said, with any preamble.

‘Gone! So soon?’

‘Well, banished is more the word.’

‘Banished!’

‘There was a terrific row,’ Josephine said. ‘We all know that our Greg did the dirty on you and none of us were too pleased with him. But Daddy and Mammy were furious. They told him to go and not come back, and none of us now are allowed to speak his name.’

Maria wondered if she had it in her heart to feel sorry for Greg, for she knew he cared for his family, but she felt nothing, as if his sister was talking about some stranger she hardly knew. It didn’t make her feel any better, but it meant she could stop looking over her shoulder every five minutes.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Please give your parents my regards.’

“S all right,’ Josephine said. ‘We all like you. You could still come. Mammy and Daddy would love to see you.’

But that time was linked to Greg, visiting the parents of the man Maria intended spending the rest of her life with. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ she said, ‘but thanks anyway.’

The following day in the chapel of St George’s Barracks, a sad little group gathered. Greg looked tall and handsome in his uniform, but Nancy was dishevelled, her face still discoloured and awash with tears, her eyes red-rimmed and her hair piled untidily on her head. But in front of her, for all to see, that no dress could hide, was the swell of her pregnancy.

The priest—Greg had insisted on a priest so that their marriage would be recognised in the Catholic Church—was a bit nervous of Nancy’s belligerent father, sitting glaring at his daughter in the front row. He wanted the marriage over speedily and was glad neither had plumped for nuptial Mass. In a matter of minutes, Nancy was Mrs Hopkins.

She thought it made little difference. Greg was going overseas, so she was going back to live at home with the father, who had terrorised them all since babyhood.

However, Greg wasn’t frightened of the man. He rather despised him as he would any who would hit a woman, and now he intended to see to it that marriage to him would protect her.

‘There’s to be no more heavy stuff,’ he told Nancy’s father sternly. ‘Never raise your hand to Nancy again, or you’ll have me to deal with. She is my wife now and not your responsibility.’

‘You young—’

‘There is nothing to be gained by calling me names,’ Greg snapped. ‘As soon as we can, we’ll get a place of our own, but until then, please treat Nancy with respect.’

There was a lot more Nancy’s father could have said, but looking Greg up and down he changed his mind and instead made do with a glare before leading his wife away.

Nancy’s eyes were shining. No one had ever stood up to her father before. ‘Oh, Greg,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, I love you so. I know you don’t feel the same and I’m sorry you’ve been pushed into this.’

Greg suddenly felt sorry for the girl for the shabby wedding with the reluctant bridegroom, and he drew Nancy into his arms. ‘I can’t say I love you,’ he said, for he thought she deserved honesty. ‘But I can say I like you, and like you a great deal. I knew what I was doing the last time I slept with you. Between us we have created a baby, part of you and part of me, and for that I could love you. I’m sure when we are a proper family and have some place to call our own, then we will be happy together.’

Nancy thought of her own parents’ turbulent marriage. ‘D’you think so?’ she said. ‘See, my mom and dad—’

‘Your parents are different people to us,’ Greg said. ‘I promise you two things: I will never raise my hand to you, nor will I be unfaithful. I might not have entered into this wholeheartedly, but now we are married I want to be a good husband to you and a good father to the child.’ He’d been avoiding Nancy’s eyes as he spoke, but he now took her chin and turned her to face him. ‘Will that do?’

‘Oh, Greg…‘ Tears sparkled in Nancy’s eyes again, but they were tears of joy. What more could any woman ask? Greg’s kiss, mindful of Nancy’s puffy lip, was tender, and it caused such a feeling of exhilaration in Nancy that she felt she could have floated to the ceiling.

CHAPTER SIX

‘So the way’s clear for you, dear brother, now lover boy Greg is out of the way,’ Seamus said to Barney a month after he heard about the split.

‘She doesn’t know I exist,’ Barney said gloomily. ‘Not like that, anyway.’

‘Prove you do.’

‘How d’you propose I do that?’

‘You could try wining and dining her.’

Barney shook his head. ‘She’s changed,’ he said. ‘She’s sort of sad all the time. I don’t think she’s thinking about men at the moment.’

‘Well, get at her through the old folks, then, so she starts to notice you.’

‘Not the mother,’ Barney said. ‘She gives me the willies, the mother, but her father’s all right. Fact is, I’ve thought for a while it’s a bloody shame for him to be lying in bed with the sun shining outside. Now that spring’s definitely here, I could push him about in a wheelchair on fine afternoons.’

‘You got a wheelchair?’

‘No, but I’m sure the doctor can get a loan of one from the hospital or some such place.’

Maria, when he broached the subject one day, after Sam had gone to sleep, was doubtful. ‘What harm could it do?’ Barney asked.

Maria couldn’t think of any. ‘Come on, Maria,’ Barney went on. ‘It would be just like him sitting up in bed, and he manages that, all right. Surely it’s not right for him looking at four bare walls when there is an alternative, and it would free Dora in the afternoons.’

‘All right,’ Maria said. ‘Speak to the doctor. If he’s in agreement and can get a wheelchair then I don’t mind at all. But what about your job?’

‘Oh, I start early morning, so I’m finished by the afternoon,’ Barney said.

In fact they finished long before that—in the early hours of the morning sometimes—and would go home to sleep until hunger drove them to find out if they had anything in the house at all edible. But that wasn’t something he wanted to share with Maria just yet a while.

The doctor was so enthusiastic about the proposal to take Sam out that all Maria’s worries about it floated away. She trusted Barney to care for him, of course she did, and Sam liked the young man. Still, she arranged for the first outing to be on a Saturday when she could see to her father and be on hand if there were problems.

It was Sam himself who was the most hesitant. Though he missed the fresh air and longed to go out, he was nervous.

‘It’s to be expected, Daddy,’ Maria said. ‘Even putting clothes on after all this time has got to be strange.’

The clothes Sam had once worn so comfortably now hung on his sparse frame. The effort of getting dressed, together with the fresh air, meant that the first outing wore Sam out so much it lasted only fifteen minutes. A week later it had risen to half an hour.

By then, Sam was the most enthusiastic of them all. He liked the chance to get out and about around the town, to be pushed to the pier or on the green and to look across the Foyle at the activity on the water and the docks. Sometimes he could hear and see the planes taking off. He also liked the chance to talk to people, to hear the news and gossip.

‘D’you know what I’d really like?’ he said to Maria that night after the first half-hour outing as she helped him into bed. ‘I’d like to go to the pub a time or two. D’you think Barney would take me with him some night?’

‘I don’t know that you would be able for that.’

‘Of course I would.’

Maria wasn’t at all keen and she couldn’t analyse why not. She asked herself, why shouldn’t her father go to the pub? It was a normal thing to do, for God’s sake. All the same she was glad her uncle was coming up the Friday that Barney had agreed to take Sam to the pub.

‘Keep an eye on him, Uncle Sean,’ she said as they were about to leave.

‘God, Maria, what d’you expect him to do? Dance naked up on the table?’

‘No.’

‘Well then, what is it?’

‘It’s silly, I know it is,’ Maria said. ‘It’s just that…look, Uncle Sean, Daddy hardly drank much before. He drank virtually nothing at all after the war started and before he began at the Derry boatyard, because he couldn’t afford it. But, well, he’s different now.’

‘A lot of things are different,’ Sean said gently. ‘Then he was a man, fit and well able to look after his family and put money on the table for anything needed—money to send his clever girl to college. What does he have now? I’m delighted Barney is taking him out each fine afternoon, but it’s still not much of a life, not compared to what he had. If he takes a drop too much and it helps him cope, can we blame him?’

‘No, no, of course not,’ Maria said. ‘I told you I was being silly.’

Despite the assurances Sean had given Maria, he’d been a little concerned to see the amount of hard stuff—whiskey and poteen—that Sam was drinking each night, certainly the weekends he’d been there. Sam had been a Guinness man, and that in moderation, but he supposed as Barney had begun to bring round the hard stuff there was nothing to do but drink it. He’d advise him to go easy tonight, though.

However, Sean was soon aware there were no words invented that could stop the drinks piled on Sam that night. It was his first foray into the pub since the accident and, as it was Friday, many of his old workmates were in there. Everyone wanted to clap him on the back and buy him a pint. Those workmates not there were sent for, and those passing in the street came into the pub on hearing Sam Foley was in there.

Rafferty’s had never done such trade. The noise, laughter, cigarette smoke and Guinness gave Sam back some of his pride, and when people sat beside him at the table, he was the same height as everyone else.

In the end, Sean had to hold Sam upright in the wheelchair while Barney pushed him home at just turned ten o’clock, for the man was very nearly comatose.

‘I couldn’t help it,’ Sean said to Maria when he saw her eyes flashing fire. ‘None of us could.’

‘It’s because it was his first time out,’ Barney said.

‘I had little myself,’ Sean said. ‘I’ll see to him, if you like. And I’m sure Barney here will stay for a cup of tea.’

‘No, no, I won’t, if you don’t mind,’ Barney said with a glance at the clock. ‘I said I’d meet Seamus later.’

When Barney let himself out, he slunk away in the shadows, down the hill and out of the town to the dark entry where Seamus was waiting in the lorry.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘I had to take Sam home,’ Barney said. ‘You mind I said I was taking him to the pub? I couldn’t leave him with Sean. He couldn’t sit upright even. Talk about legless.’

‘I’ll give you legless if you don’t get in this sodding lorry and quick,’ Seamus said, revving the engine as Barney leapt in. ‘Ten o’clock we’re supposed to start from here. You know this all boils down to timing. Can’t have them hanging about waiting for stuff.’

‘OK, I know,’ Barney said. ‘And I am sorry. It was his first night, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Filled that full of booze, it might be his last,’ Seamus said, and added callously, ‘Get him home for half-nine in future. It’s late enough for a cripple like him to be out anyway.’

‘That’s a bloody awful thing to say, Seamus.’

‘Look, Sonny Jim,’ Seamus snarled, ‘we’re not running a charity. This is how we live and I don’t see you complaining when you get your cut.’

‘No…‘

‘Well, then. Do what you like with whoever you like, but be here on bloody time or else.’

Barney knew what the ‘else’ meant. He’d been on the receiving end of it enough times and even now, fully grown as he was, he was frightened of his brother. ‘OK, OK. Keep your bloody hair on.’

‘As long as we get it straight,’ Seamus said grimly and he let out the throttle and the lorry roared through the back roads on its way to Derry.

‘Haven’t you sweetened up that girl enough to go out with you yet?’ Seamus asked Barney towards the end of June. ‘You’ve spent enough time with the father.’

‘I don’t take Sam out because of Maria,’ Barney said. ‘I did at first, but not now.’ Sam’s first trip to the pub was not his last and now he usually went once or twice a week. If Sean wasn’t there to take Sam home, Barney would deliver him to the door no later than a quarter to ten. He would never come in, claiming he had business with his brother.

‘Well, is she nicer to you because of it?

‘She’s pleasant enough, but then she’s always been pleasant,’ Barney said.

‘She’s had time and enough to get over lover boy, surely to God.’

Barney wondered if she’d ever get over him. The whole experience had changed her. There had used to be a gaiety about her, the liveliness of youth, but that was gone now. She was still incredibly thin and Barney often saw her looking pensive, her eyes glittering with unshed tears.

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.’

Maria immediately felt guilty. ‘Shall I run over to Rafferty’s for a couple of bottles of Guinness?’ she said. ‘I’ll have time before the bus.’

‘No,’ Sam said. ‘I have a bottle of better stuff,’ and he drew a bottle of poteen from under the covers.

‘Where did you get that?’ Maria asked, surprised.

‘Barney brought it in earlier.’

Maria sighed, but said not a word more. Instead, she gave him a glass and went up to get ready.

‘You look a picture, Maria,’ Sam said, when she came back into the room.

‘You’re biased,’ she replied with a smile, ‘and your brain’s addled with poteen. Listen, now, Mammy is asleep and Dora will be in directly. I’ll knock the door as I pass.’

‘Yes, yes. I’ll be all right. Don’t fret. Get yourself away.’

‘I will, in a minute.’

Just then there was a knock at the door. ‘That’ll be him,’ Sam said. ‘Don’t keep him waiting.’

Maria was impressed by Barney’s appearance. He was wearing the suit he wore to Mass. His shirt was pristine white and not creased. His shoes were highly polished and she smelt the Brylcreem and knew he’d tried to curb his unruly curls, but not terribly successfully.

However well Barney looked, though, Maria was convinced she was making a mistake in agreeing to go out with him at all. Her stiffness and stance told Barney quite clearly that she would reject any move towards greater intimacy and so he didn’t even try to put an arm around her shoulder, or hold her hand as they made their way to the bus stop Then she’d sat beside him in the bus as if she was a lump of wood.

It was slightly better when they got to the cinema. Although Maria did hold her body away from him pointedly at first, she did relax more as she began to enjoy the film. It was by the American, Walt Disney, whom everyone seemed to be talking about. Maria thought that if her opinion had been asked before she had seen it she would have said she wouldn’t be interested in it at all. With all the animation and such, it sounded like something for weans surely. However, she found herself fascinated by it. She was glad it was as unlike the films she’d seen when she was with Greg as it was possible to be.

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.

CHAPTER SEVEN

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.

However, that night the dress she had on was one she’d made herself from some shiny green satin she’d had for ages. She’d often designed her own clothes and the dress was spectacular—fitted across the bust, with long flowing sleeves, the waist was dropped and the skirts fuller from there with little pleats tucking into the waistband.

Barney was almost speechless when he’d come to pick her up that evening. Her eyes looked greener and larger than ever. He saw many people turn to stare at Maria as they made their way into the hall. Nor was Maria allowed to sit at a table to watch all evening. She refused many offers to dance, saying she didn’t know how to do it, but eventually a couple approached.

‘Don’t say you don’t know how to do it, lady,’ said the man. ‘It’s easy. So, how will it be if I teach you, while my girl teaches your man?’

Maria felt she’d rather have crept away to the ladies’, but she saw by Barney’s face he’d like to do this and so she nodded her head and let the man lead her onto the dance floor. It was as easy as the soldier had prophesied, and the music great to dance to. Maria was only afraid when the man caught her around the waist and swung her around that she might show her knickers, for the skirt of her dress fanned out like a flower.

But, all in all, she enjoyed her first American dance. Barney was proud of her, proud to be seen with her, and though he had no objection to her dancing with others, he kept a weather eye on the situation. He’d almost lost Maria once to another by staying quiet; he had no intention of running that risk again so he made sure he danced with Maria more than any other.

Maria knew what Barney was afraid of—she could almost feel his unease—but he needn’t have worried. She had no designs on any American. But it was nice to be admired, to be openly told how beautiful, charming, truly lovely she was. It gave Maria a boost, as it would any girl. It didn’t matter if they said the same to everyone, it made her feel good about herself, which was something she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

That evening there was no question of Barney going straight home. As he followed Maria in, Dora began collecting her things together.

‘Good night?’

‘Oh, Dora, it was wonderful,’ Maria said. ‘Did you have any trouble?’

‘No, your mother never stirred and your father has been asleep for about two hours,’ Dora said.

Maria knew it would have been a poteen-induced sleep, but she wasn’t going to worry about that any more.

She closed the door on Dora and said to Barney, ‘Thank you, I’ve had a lovely evening.’ She kissed him gently on the lips and when he put his arms around her, she held him tight and sighed. Barney released her, took her hand and led her to the settee, where he sat and pulled her down beside him.

There was no point, Barney thought, in beating about the bush. ‘Do you like me, Maria?’

‘Of course I like you.’

‘Could you more than like me? Love me even?’

‘I’ve never thought of you that way.’

‘Do you still think of him that did the dirty on you?’

Greg? All the time, Maria might have said, but she didn’t say that. Instead, she said. ‘I did. He hurt me very much, that time.’

‘Did you love him?’

Maria nodded. ‘And I know I feel something for you, but I’m not sure what yet. I think I need a little time before I can be sure of my feelings.’

‘And we’ll continue seeing each other?’

‘Of course,’ Maria said. ‘Anyway, we could hardly not with all you do for Daddy.’

‘I like your father, Maria,’ Barney said. ‘I get on well with him and always have.’

‘I know this,’ Maria said. She knew that Barney hadn’t taken to her mother—couldn’t take to her—but then he wouldn’t be the only person made nervous by mental illness.

‘We’ll leave it so for now then,’ Barney said, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll press you no further tonight, but will await your answer.’

Monday morning, Joanne wanted to know all about the dance, what Maria wore, what it was like and was jitterbugging as much fun as everyone said it was. When all the questions had been asked, she said, ‘I hoped you thanked your Barney properly for taking you out to somewhere so fabulous.’

‘Well,’ said Maria with a smile, ‘let’s say I didn’t leave him at the door.’

‘I should think not,’ Joanne said indignantly. ‘You can carry this chivalrous behaviour too far, you know.’

‘Actually he asked me if I could love him?’

‘Golly, that was quick. Could you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I think yes and other times no. I don’t want to go back to the way it was, the daily grind with work and my parents and nothing to look forward to at all, but then…‘

‘Don’t tie yourself down because of something like that,’ Joanne said. ‘God, I wish I looked like you and had your figure. Lads must be queuing up to claim you.’

‘They’re not, Joanne,’ Maria said. ‘I have a bedridden father, fast turning into an alcoholic, and a mother who doesn’t know what day of the week it is. That is enough to put off any but the most stalwart. Barney knows the situation and accepts it. He is good with Daddy and they get on together. He isn’t so good with Mammy, but then that is the same as everyone else.’

Joanne said nothing, for she sensed that Maria hadn’t finished. After a while, she went on, ‘I suppose what I am really saying, Joanne, is if I don’t take Barney, I think in the end I will be left alone, and I have coped alone for long enough. There is something else as well. So many demands are made upon me, I seldom have time to think about myself. It would be wonderful to have someone who cared about me and my needs. I could do with that so much sometimes when I feel the burden is heavy.’

‘I’ve heard and understood every word that you’ve said,’ Joanne replied. ‘And all I would advise is, take your time over making the decision.’

‘Barney isn’t pressing me,’ Maria said. ‘But on the other hand, he’ll not wait for ever.’

Before she’d analysed how she felt about Barney, Bella came over one evening to talk about Sarah. She left it till she knew Sarah was in bed and then she confronted Maria and her father. ‘It’s not that I’m not sorry for her. God, it breaks my heart to see her this way, but…well, it’s the aggression, d’you see? She nearly scratched the eyes out of Maggie and bit me on the arm.’ At this, Bella rolled up her sleeve to show the ring of purple teeth marks sunk into the skin. ‘And it was for nothing at all, you know,’ she went on. ‘Have you not noticed it yourself?’

Maria had noticed Sarah often slapped out at her and pushed her away roughly, but she hadn’t started biting or scratching. There was no doubting the marks on Bella’s arm, though. ‘I’m sorry to the heart of me that you have had to cope with this,’ said Sam.

Bella looked from Sam to Maria and back again.

Maria said. ‘I’ve noticed Mammy being rougher than she used to be.’

‘Have you?’ Sam said.

‘Aye,’ Maria said. ‘I think it’s frustration. It’s always when I’m doing things with her.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Sam said. He too had noticed the deterioration in his wife and so had Barney. He knew because they’d talked about it often, as Barney wheeled him about the town, or later in the pub, sinking a pint or two. Sam knew Barney had been nervous of Sarah from the first, but didn’t blame him for that. He’d known and loved Sarah for years, but that girl and woman had ceased to exist. Sometimes her odd behaviour left him edgy.

‘She’s getting no better, Sam, but worse,’ Barney had said just days before. ‘And it’s Maria bears the brunt of it.’

‘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.

Maria gasped. That action reminded her of Greg. Stop thinking about Greg, she admonished herself. He belonged to another life now, he was someone else’s husband, some wee child’s father and lost to her for ever. This is the here and now, with Barney beside her.

And a very careworn, exhausted Barney, she noticed for the first time. ‘You look…you look…‘

‘Awful, I know.’

‘I was going to say tired.’

‘Aye,’ Barney said, and added, ‘I worked all night so I could be with you today.’

‘Ah, Barney!’

The words, spoken so lovingly, sent the heat coursing through Barney. He felt himself harden. ‘Maria,’ he said, ‘I think I love you.’

He kissed her then with all the passion in him. When he pressed her lips open gently and let his tongue dart in and out of her mouth, she resisted at first. Then she relaxed and gave herself up to the pleasure of it, and moaned softly.

Barney smiled to himself. He’d had many sexual encounters and was a skilled lover. He began to kiss her again. Her senses reeled and she tried to press him closer, but Barney was busy unbuttoning her cardigan and then her blouse. Maria hadn’t taken the time to bring her coat for the day was mild.

Maria wondered why she wasn’t protesting, but it was as if she hadn’t the energy. She felt incredibly sad still and terribly guilty. There was no room left in her to feel shame at what she was allowing Barney to do to her. She wanted to forget the events of that morning, even for the briefest of time. She wanted, oh, how she wanted, someone to bring her gratification for a change and Barney was doing an excellent job. She had no desire to ask him to stop.

Barney couldn’t believe he had got so far. Every minute he had expected his hands to be slapped down, but Maria sat before him in her brassiere and when he gently pushed her onto the grass, lay on top of her, and covered her mouth with his, she returned his kisses passionately.

Maria felt as if she was floating in bliss. She closed her eyes as Barney kissed her neck and throat and then he slipped the straps from Maria’s shoulders, pulled the brassiere down to her waist and saw the ripe juiciness of Maria’s breasts before his eyes.

When he began to lick her nipple gently, then suck at it greedily, Maria moaned in ecstasy and felt desire stabbing at her, demanding to be satisfied. ‘Oh, Barney…Oh God…‘

‘Maria, you are beautiful, wondrous,’ Barney cried huskily, his breath coming in short pants. ‘I love every inch of you.’

He knew he could take her if he wished and presumed all the emotion over the last few days, culminating in that awful scene that morning, had drained Maria. She definitely needed him, and wanted him as she never had before. If he was to make love to her, she’d be his. She was ripe for it now, like she might never ever be again. ‘You know I’d never hurt you, Maria,’ Barney said, kissing her between each word, as he fiddled with the waistband of her skirt.

This was when Maria knew she should put the brakes on, but Barney had worked her up so much, it would have been like stopping the tide. All she said was, ‘Yes, Barney.’

She was caught up in desire that she never felt before. Her brief courtship with Greg had been chaste, very proper, but now her whole being cried out for fulfilment, satisfaction for the passion that was almost consuming her.

Barney’s hand was between her legs, rubbing her and teasing her, until she cried out, ‘Oh, please, please.’ She didn’t know what she was asking for, just something to still the ache burning inside her.

‘Are you sure?’ Barney asked.

‘Oh, yes. Quick.’

And then, Maria knew the doctor wasn’t the only one to lie. He’d said Sarah wouldn’t know or care where they took her, and Barney said he wouldn’t hurt her but he did.

Then it didn’t matter. They clung together, every nerve pulsating and moving as if they were one person. Waves and waves of exquisite joy that went higher and higher, and ever more rapturous, ran through Maria until she thought she’d explode.

‘Oh, Barney, I love you, love you, love you,’ she cried as Barney clasped her even closer.

‘And I you, you darling girl,’ he said.

Maria was breathless when it was eventually over, but still she held Barney close. ‘You have your answer,’ she panted. ‘I will be proud to love you and to be your girl.’

Barney rolled off Maria and lit a cigarette. She lay beside him, satiated, contented in a way she never had been before.

They wandered back to the village some time later, hand in hand, and Dora had only had to catch the one sight of them to know what they’d been at, for the delight and joy of it still played around Maria’s mouth. Her flushed face, tousled hair and grass-covered clothes told their own tale.

Sam was too bowed down with shame and guilt to notice anything. God, he’d be glad when the day was over. That look Sarah had given him should have turned him to stone. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t let himself regret the decision to send Sarah away, for now Maria didn’t have the responsibility of her. Best thing he could do was get out of the road to and give the girl back her life. It wasn’t as if he was any bloody use.

‘Have you any drink on you, Barney?’ he asked desperately, almost as soon as the man was in the door.

‘No, but I’ll get you one, and gladly.’

‘Daddy…‘ Maria chided.

‘Don’t nag me, child,’ Sam pleaded. ‘Not today of all days. I’ll not get through it at all without a drink.’

‘Leave him alone,’ Barney advised Maria at the door. ‘It’s all the poor sod has. You have me. We have each other.’

‘Oh, Barney,’ she said, then gasped as he slipped a hand between her legs.

‘See what he’s missing? What’s a drop of whiskey?’

What indeed? Maria was smiling as she closed the door.

In the cold light of the next day, Maria faced what she had done with Barney and her face flamed with embarrassment. She remembered her abandonment and how she’d given herself so freely that she had begged and pleaded like some sort of wanton. Oh dear Christ, what had she been thinking of? However would she face Barney after this? She’d be barely able to look him in the eye.

Mind, she told herself, as she got up and dressed, he’d probably not want to see her after the exhibition she’d made of herself. Everyone knew that men would take what was on offer, but if the woman was too easy, they’d throw her to one side when they were done with her. And what if there were consequences, she thought in horror, as she went downstairs. The gasp she gave was so audible, it brought Sam’s rheumy eyes to rest on her.

She looked at his dear face and knew if she ever had to tell him she was with child and unmarried the shock would kill him. Barney had said he loved her, but hadn’t mentioned marriage. She knew if she should be pregnant and remain unmarried, rather than display that scandal that would drag Sam through the mud as well, she would throw herself into the Foyle.

She forced herself to smile at her father. ‘Hello, Daddy. How are you feeling?’

‘Badly, child.’

‘Badly?’

‘Aye, inside myself,’ Sam said.

Maria crossed the room and smoothed down the lines on her father’s forehead. ‘I’ll make us some porridge directly,’ she said. ‘It’s Saturday; I have no work today.’

‘I want no porridge,’ Sam said. ‘Just a drop of tea.’

‘Daddy, you must have something,’ Maria admonished.

Sam shook his head. ‘I want nothing, child,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t eat it.’

‘Maybe you’ll feel better when you have the tea taken,’ Maria said, but without much hope. However, she was dismayed when she took the tea over to her father to see his hands shaking so badly, she had to hold the cup steady to prevent it spilling all down him. ‘Maybe you’d pour me a wee glass of whiskey after this,’ he said.

‘Daddy!’

‘To steady myself just,’ Sam said. ‘Go on, be a good girl now. To please your daddy.’

Feeling anything like a good girl, and very much against her better judgement, Maria poured a sizeable measure of whiskey into a glass and gave it to her father. She hadn’t the time or inclination to argue with him, for Saturday was a busy enough day. After breakfast, she’d have to wash and change her father and put all the soiled linen to boil with the rest she had soaking. She also had the remainder of the wash to see to, the house to clean from top to bottom and the shopping to get in. She set to with a will as soon as she’d eaten, intending to work so hard she would drive the incidents of the previous day from her mind.

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