Mother’s Only Child. Anne Bennett

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      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, СКАЧАТЬ