Amongst Women

  ‘A digger and a dumper. The best paid of all is if you can get to drive the crane.’

  ‘How do you go about learning that?’

  ‘You get them to show you after the job stops, the fellows that drive, that is.’

  ‘How do you go about that?’

  ‘They have to sort of like you and you buy them pints. If you buy them enough pints it goes a long way.’

  ‘I believe my eldest son works in somewhat the same line of business,’ Moran changed awkwardly.

  ‘No. He’s in renovation,’ Mark explained patiently. ‘They buy up old houses and convert them into flats. I’ve always worked on big open sites.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Moran said testily. ‘He doesn’t choose to tell me what he does.’

  ‘He’s away with it. He’s a director of that company.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Moran had now had enough. ‘And it wouldn’t make any difference if I did. I look on all my children as equal no matter what their station in life is. Anybody they choose to bring into the family I also look on in the same way.’

  Rose started to make the tea they had each night before going to bed. Mark saw that there was still a good hour to go before the pubs closed. After the tension of the long evening, the interrogation by the fire, he felt in terrible need.

  ‘I’d like to go for a drink,’ he said to Maggie.

  ‘The nearest tavern is four miles,’ Moran said drily.

  ‘I’m sure there are some cordials in the house since Christmas,’ Rose offered.

  ‘I’d like to go out for a drink. Couldn’t we borrow the car?’

  Maggie stood frozen before the confrontation. So great was Mark’s need to get out for a drink that it enabled him to confront Moran’s formidable authority within the house.

  As slowly as it seemed possible Moran took the car keys from his pocket and threw them on the table with a contemptuous little flick.

  ‘I don’t like the idea of people driving who drink,’ Moran said.

  ‘We’ll be careful. We’ll only have one drink or two at the most. It’s just to get out of the house.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what you’d do after a week in the house if you’re that wild to get out now,’ Moran said sarcastically but Mark didn’t hear. He had the car keys. He was already walking into the door of a strange bar, smelling the freshness of the porter, savouring the white collar.

  Maggie put on her coat and went up to Moran to kiss him good night. He allowed her to kiss him but he did not return it.

  So uncomfortable was the silence that Mark asked, now that he had the keys in his hand, ‘Are you sure you and Rose wouldn’t come with us, Michael?’

  The proposition sounded so ludicrous to Moran that the very idea seemed an echo of the glittering jacket, and he began to laugh harshly. ‘No, Mark. We wouldn’t like to go with you but enjoy yourselves.’

  It took some time for them to start the car. As they heard it drive away Moran said reflectively to Rose, ‘We are made up at last. We’ll have the town poor in the family next.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind the jacket. That’s just the fashion. It’ll change,’ Rose said tentatively.

  It’s not the jacket. It’s the man. There were some of those types in our battalion for a while. They could put on a show and swagger but when it came to any crunch they had no backbone.’

  ‘He’s nice-looking and he seems to suit Maggie. He looks kind.’

  ‘I was never much on the lookout for kindness, but don’t worry, Rose. If he suits her he’ll suit me,’ he said.

  They went to bed but did not sleep until after the car was returned to the shed. A door banged and Mark’s voice was loud as they came in. Then they heard Maggie’s low urgings that he keep his voice down.

  ‘That’s going to be their life,’ Moran said. ‘Gather money, then a spree; gather more money, then another spree. It’s not going to be easy to keep it going. I’ll help any of my family in any way I can but I draw the line at helping to keep the sprees going.’

  The following days went more easily. Maggie had always been by far the most gregarious of the girls. She was known in every house around. Now she could show Mark off. In such a quiet place the young couple was excitement and brought news. When Mark’s good looks were admired Maggie blossomed and grew prettier in the praise. Usually he was given a large glass of whiskey with the customary tea and sweet cake or biscuits. He glowed in the attention and alcohol and came home to Rose’s meals in high good humour. In spite of the severity of the family he was beginning to feel that it was flattering to be connected to such a house, this house that was at the centre of Maggie’s being. In such a mood, at Maggie’s prompting, he would search Moran out in the fields to chat. Moran saw him as no threat and was unusually indulgent. Maggie’s pleasure was so intense that she could not speak when she saw the two men come together into the house. It was in the evenings, until the Rosary was said, that Moran’s brooding silence, broken by occasional sallies, always had to be watched and it was the Rosary itself that Mark found hardest; but then he could take the car to the pub. He found a bar of his own in town where he had ingratiated himself with the owner and a few regulars.

  A few hours before they were due to leave for the train Maggie alone, in great trepidation, went into the fields to look for Moran. She found him stretching barbed wire that had loosened on a boundary fence and he was stapling it to fresh posts. As soon as he saw her he knew at once why she had come, and waited.

  ‘We’re going today, Daddy.’

  ‘I know. I’ll drive you to the station but it’s not time yet.’

  ‘I want to know what you think of Mark, Daddy.’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘We are thinking of getting married.’

  He let go of the strand of wire and faced her directly. ‘If he does you, Maggie, he’ll do me.’

  ‘You have nothing against Mark then?’ What he said had been a great deal less than she had hoped for.

  ‘I look on all my children as equal. Anybody they choose to bring into the family will get looked on in the same way. If you marry Mark, he’ll be like any other member of the family, neither more nor less. There’s one thing I would say to you. I’d say it to anybody. I do not think the tavern every night is the best preparation for a great marriage.’

  ‘That’s just because it is our holidays, Daddy.’

  ‘I sincerely hope so,’ Moran said firmly.

  ‘Is it all right for me to marry Mark then?’

  ‘If he does you, Maggie, he’ll do me. I hope you’ll be happy.’

  There were tears in her eyes as she kissed him. In the weeks ahead this grudging approval would grow in her mind into an ecstatic welcome of Mark by the whole family.

  Rose smoothed Maggie’s arms down from the shoulders, holding her young body out at arm’s length in order to give it full admiration as they took their leave. ‘You have a beautiful figure, Maggie. It’s a wonderful thing to see a handsome couple starting out on their lives.’

  Moran drove them to the station and waited with them on the platform until the train came.

  ‘Thanks for everything, Michael,’ Mark said manfully as they shook hands.

  ‘Please God, you’ll both be happy,’ Moran said.

  ‘Thanks, Daddy,’ tears were slipping down Maggie’s cheeks as she raised herself to kiss him goodbye.

  As soon as the train was moving Mark said, ‘I need a drink. I need several drinks. I feel as if I’ve just got out of jail.’

  ‘You were allowed to go anywhere you wanted.’ Maggie was stung by the implication. ‘Daddy even gave you the car every night.’

  ‘I’m not complaining. It’s just a feeling. No matter what you did you felt it wasn’t awanting.’

  ‘That’s just a way Daddy has. He liked you very much but it’s hard for him to show it. He said that he was very happy that we are going to be married.’

  ‘We’d be married anyhow whether he was happy about it or not.’
br />   ‘It’s far nicer though that Daddy agrees to it.’ She had taken the engagement ring from her purse and slipped it back on her finger. She raised the ring to the window so that the three small rhinestones caught the rushing light. ‘The ring will never leave this hand now,’ she said.

  ‘Would you like me to bring you a beer back?’ Mark asked.

  ‘I’ll come with you. We can have a drink together in the bar.’

  When they reached an empty corridor between two carriages they paused and held each other in a long embrace before going on to the bar.

  They were married that July in London. All the house was at the wedding except Moran and Rose. Mona was bridesmaid. Luke stood in for Moran and Maggie walked up the altar on his arm. The reception was held in a large room above the Three Blackbirds. After the meal and the toasts there was dancing to a piano. Most of the guests were in their twenties, young men bronzed from the building sites, girls from the hospitals. Moran wrote that London was too far off of a journey for him and Rose to travel to at their age and he enclosed a cheque that covered most of the cost of the reception.

  ‘It would be too hard on Daddy to see you married in London,’ Mona and Sheila joined to counter Maggie’s disappointment that Moran did not come to her wedding. ‘He and Rose aren’t young any more.’

  As if the wedding itself was a breach they were determined not to let widen, the girls beat an even more vigorous path back to the house that summer and winter than ever before. Mona or Sheila, and often both of them together, came every weekend. They took their holidays to coincide with the hay, the only time of year when there was any stress of work now, and they helped Moran and Rose save and gather it into the sheds.

  Michael broke his leg in an accident on the buildings. He came home that winter for several weeks while convalescing. All the old trouble between the son and father had been forgotten about; Michael even laughed out loud once when it came up by accident. Rose loved to see Michael home. He was more her natural child than any of the girls. When alone they could be heard chattering away and each of them would cease instinctively the moment Moran entered the room. During these chats he told Rose that he was abandoning casual labouring work as soon as he returned to London. Luke told him that he would find him a place in the City that could lead to qualifying as an accountant if he passed his exams. Already he was studying books that Luke had given him to read while his leg healed. Rose passed all this information on to Moran. ‘He could be qualified now if he had minded his manners when he was at school. He always had brains enough. He had to learn manners the hard way.’

  As great a pall would fall on the conversation when Luke’s name came up as fell on Rose and Michael’s bright chatter the moment Moran entered the room. Rose told the girls that Moran was secretly grieving for Luke, and the more they discussed it among themselves the more indignant they grew. They felt that Luke’s whole behaviour was unnatural and hard and unforgiving. They all had grievances enough but there was little use in holding on to them for ever.

  Luke had to be challenged. Maggie volunteered to face him. She rang him at work. He readily agreed to meet her in a little pub close to Leicester Square station. Mark came with Maggie. Luke was alone when they arrived. Despite Mark’s pressing him to take a pint, he would only have a half of bitter and he nursed it through the meeting. Mark was drinking pints, Maggie halves of lager. They were dressed up and looked as if they were intending to spend the whole evening in the pub.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? You don’t look sick to me,’ Mark said laughingly, relaxed and prepared to be charming.

  ‘It just does nothing for me,’ Luke raised his glass.

  ‘I hope the same will never happen here. Good luck!’

  ‘Daddy is upset you’ve not gone home in all these years. He’s getting old now. He wants you to go home.’

  ‘It would do no good.’

  Though tall, Luke had always been slight of build and he hadn’t filled out much with the years. His eyes were clear. He was taut, watchful and hidden, in direct contrast to his younger brother’s sunny good looks.

  ‘You hold too much of a grudge,’ Maggie said.

  ‘I hold no grudge. That would be stupid. But I have a good memory.’

  ‘Your father wants you to go home,’ Mark supported Maggie.

  ‘If he wants to meet me he could have come over for your wedding and we could have taken it from there. He just wants everything on his own ground.’

  ‘Daddy is old now.’

  ‘Much older men come to London to go to their daughter’s wedding. I have no quarrel with his age. It’s his carry-on I can’t take.’

  ‘Daddy has changed.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Mark urged.

  ‘I don’t think people change, their circumstances maybe, that changes them around a bit but that’s not real change.’

  ‘This is above me,’ Mark said. ‘I’m getting another pint.’

  ‘It’s my round, Mark.’

  ‘You’re not drinking.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’ He got a pint for Mark. Maggie refused a drink.

  ‘Are you going light on your own round?’ Mark teased mockingly.

  ‘I have work to do.’

  ‘There will be work long after you,’ Maggie said.

  He did not answer her but his silence was unyielding.

  ‘You probably have as much in the bank already as would do me for the rest of my life,’ Mark joked, loosened with the alcohol.

  Luke still did not answer. He smiled in a gesture of amiable separateness.

  Mark had finished his pint and was preparing to go to the counter for another round. ‘Aren’t you having anything more yourself?’ he asked with the unease of heavy drinkers.

  ‘I still haven’t finished this one and I have to go in a few minutes.’

  ‘I thought we were going to make an evening of it,’ Maggie said resentfully. ‘We hardly ever see you now.’

  ‘I’ll ring you. Why don’t you come over to my place for dinner some evening?’

  ‘We have tea in the evenings,’ Mark said aggressively as he came back to the table.

  ‘You can have tea as well. I’ll give you your choice.’

  ‘And you’ll go home to see Daddy?’

  ‘No, I said I wasn’t going home.’

  ‘It’s not natural.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t choose my father. He didn’t choose me. If I’d known, I certainly would have refused to meet the man. No doubt he’d have done likewise with me,’ Luke laughed for the first time in the meeting.

  ‘That’s not funny,’ Maggie said angrily.

  ‘It may not be natural but it’s true.’

  ‘So you’re not going home?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then. You can forget about asking us to that famous dinner in your place,’ Maggie said with confrontational sarcasm.

  ‘I’m sorry then,’ Luke rose and offered them his goodbye. He lingered uncomfortably for a moment but when they made no answer he shrugged and walked out of the bar.

  ‘You sure come from an odd family. I think your father is easier than that brother of yours. I can’t see the two of them having much to say to one another,’ Mark said as soon as Luke left.

  ‘Daddy is not near as hard as that,’ Maggie protested on the point of tears.

  ‘They’re welcome to one another.’

  ‘Daddy is different. He has his ways. I never thought Luke would get so hard. I hope you don’t think I’m odd.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re a bit odd. And I’m going to enjoy this next pint. You can’t enjoy a drink with someone watching you like that.’

  That Luke had refused again to go to Great Meadow went through the house in days but it was not allowed to reach Moran. Together the three girls found it unacceptable. They had assumed that time and distance would smooth all but the most angular of differences and they now feared that too much time had already passed. B
eneath all differences was the belief that the whole house was essentially one. Together they were one world and could take on the world. Deprived of this sense they were nothing, scattered, individual things. They would put up with anything in order to have this sense of belonging. They would never let it go. No one could be allowed to walk out easily.

  ‘Are you sure you put it to him right?’ Sheila demanded. ‘He seemed sensible enough at your wedding.’

  ‘Mark was with me. Ask him if you want to. Oh, Luke can be very charming – excuse me – when he’s not asked to do what he doesn’t want.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ Sheila responded. In the frustration the sarcasm showed clearly.

  ‘There’s no need to tell Daddy. He’d just get upset,’ Rose said when she was told.

  As a last resort the girls decided to send Michael to speak to Luke. They arranged to meet. Luke offered lunch and picked an Italian place near to where Michael worked. The luxury of the restaurant was a treat for Michael and he was excited and laughing. He shared his sisters’ sense of family: to have lunch with his brother in such a place was important.

  Luke asked about his work, his exams, if there was any help he wanted. All was well, Michael answered; nothing could be done until he qualified. They enjoyed the food, the luxury, the wine, the sense of privilege where all gathered in a fleeting act of restoration; and they had nothing to deal or sell.

  ‘Was it all right?’ Luke asked at the end of the meal.

  ‘You could get used to it,’ Michael laughed. ‘It would be very easy. I have to state though that I’m here on a mission.’

  ‘What mission?’

  Michael raised his hand in mock defence. ‘The sisters sent me. I’m supposed to ask you to go home to Great Meadow.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Because Daddy wants to see you.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to see Daddy.’

  ‘I’ve said my bit. I’m not saying another word.’

  ‘The man is mad. Or that’s how I remember him.’

  Michael found this so funny that his sudden shout of laughter attracted the attention of nearby tables.

  ‘I’m serious,’ Luke said. ‘There are lunatics, right? There are fathers who must have lunatic sons. There must be sons who have lunatic fathers. Either I’m crazy or he is.’