Masters of the House (7 page)

“What I wonder at today is how well we did,” said Annie, calmly knitting away at some children's clothes she had characteristically brought with her. “After all, we knew far less than twelve- or thirteen-year-olds know today. There's far more sex on television nowadays—it's sort of taken for granted, even in the hours when young children are watching. And of course Mum had kept us rather protected. Yet somehow we managed to hit on the right note to keep her away from us.”

“What—you mean, ‘He says you're disgusting'?”

“Yes, that kind of thing.”

“It must have been something intuitive—though of course we didn't know the half. But it was the right note to strike. And it certainly kept her quiet for a time. Long enough for us to start coming out of our prison.”

“If she'd been wise, she would just have kept quiet and kept away. If she had, everything would have blown over. Or at least we wouldn't have been involved.”

“But she wasn't wise. Wisdom wasn't in her,” said the wise-beyond-his-years Matthew.

Annie nodded. She had a schoolteacher husband and two children of five and three. The events of 1979 were now an episode of past history, one she could talk about almost as if she had not been involved. For Matthew it was the shaping experience of his life.

“She brought us face-to-face with evil,” he said.

A
LL THIS TIME
, as the evenings began to lighten and the spring flowers blossomed and faded, the man in the smallest bedroom remained in much the same state of mental darkness. It became easier to get him to take food, as if he was resigned to continuing his own existence, and he sometimes had what could be called good days as well as bad ones: Then he might say something like “I should be doing something for you kids,” or “God knows how you're coping without your mother.” But these moments of realisation that the situation in the house was exceptional, was out of kilter, were rare indeed, and mostly he lay or sat on the bed mumbling about punishment and sin. It was as much as they could do to prevent him becoming smelly, like a neglected dog.

As the weeks dragged by and the feeling of being imprisoned grew, Matthew's attitude towards his father changed: When he first suspected that he had been having an affair with
the sensual, threatening creature who was now disturbing their security, he had felt a childish rage and disgust. How could he betray their mother like that? The inevitable daily contacts with the shambling mess matured and modified that reaction. He still felt contempt, but now it became tinged with compassion. The wrong he had done had brought on him a dreadful punishment. He said one day, “You shouldn't blame yourself.” It was something his mother had sometimes said, for example, when a boisterous children's game in a tree had led to a younger friend's falling and breaking his leg. But Dermot had merely mumbled something that sounded like “Who else?” Matthew had shrugged and left the frowsty little room.

Of friends there were now only school friends—children to talk and play with during school hours. Once they might have come home with the Heenan children after school or called at weekends. Ellen Heenan had loved having troops of children around her. Matthew and Annie made sure that didn't happen now. “Dad's got too much to do,” they said; “we don't want to add to his burden.” Or sometimes, “We haven't got over Mum's death yet. It's no fun in our house now.” Even children could realise they wouldn't be welcome.

“I don't think she's going to come back,” said Matthew to Annie one day in the kitchen, washing up tea things.

“Nor do I. But I wish I
knew.”

“We can't ask her to give us a signed oath that she won't come round and bother us again,” Matthew pointed out.

“I don't mean that. I mean I wish I knew what she was doing and saying. About us.”

Matthew nodded vigorously.

“So do I. If she's saying anything. Maybe she thinks the sensible thing is to keep quiet.”

“Maybe. But she's not a sensible person. I wish I knew. . . .
In fact, I wish we knew a whole lot more about her. We hardly know anything.”

“That's a point. Not that I want to. But maybe we need to know about her. As a sort of weapon.”

“That's right. Because if she knew about . . . about here, she'd dob us in to the authorities just out of spite. Not because she cared, but out of spite.”

The next day, later in the evening, as they talked together like any married couple with children in the hours after bedtime, Matthew said, “If we could go to church together, talk to some of the people we know there . . .”

“We agreed we wouldn't.”

“If we could go together, it would give the impression that everything was all right at home.”

“I suppose so. But what about the new priest?”

“We could slip out the side door. A lot of people do if they're in a hurry to get away. He won't know everybody yet. There's no reason why he should wonder who we are if we're careful.”

“No. . . . It's not what we decided . . . but I would like to go to church. It's what Mum would have wanted.”

“I know. I keep thinking how we're forgetting her.”

“Yes. Jamie has forgotten her entirely.”

They looked at each other, a little tearful.

“I think we should go to church. Just the once.”

“And try to find out about
that woman
afterwards.”

“But who would look after the little ones?”

“Greg will have to look after Jamie.”

It wasn't what either of them wanted, but they could not think of an alternative. They made it a very serious business—it was a first time, and a sign of their trust in him. They were both going to have to go to church—Greg accepted going to church as a normal part of life—and he would be totally responsible
for his brother. They were both to stay in the living room with a selection of toys, but as a precaution all kitchen implements or utensils that could be shut away were, because they were sure that at some point one or other would want something from the fridge and go out there. Any little cuts or bruises Greg could deal with—sweets and elastoplast were left on the table—but if anything serious happened he was to run along to Mr Purdom or Mrs Claydon. But he was to try not to. As they left they waited to make sure Greg locked the back door, as he had been told to.

It was funny to be back at church again. It was a ten-minute walk, and as they arrived there people were drawing up in cars or arriving on foot. Somehow it was both strange and yet normal to be part of that throng again—strange because their mother was not with them, and people obviously felt a certain awkwardness with them, normal because the throng of people was there with a common purpose which they recognised and shared.

“Hello Annie, hello Matthew, everything all right?” people said, looking at them closely and registering that they were neat and tidy, as they had taken good care to be.

“Yes, everything's fine. People have been very good. Dad's at home looking after the littlies,” they said.

“Never a great one for church, your dad,” someone said.

“Not really, though Mum tried.”

“People have been good, have they?” Mrs O'Hara said. “I've felt awfully guilty myself. . . .”

“Oh, they've helped a lot,” Matthew said hastily.

“Because someone was saying only the other day they hadn't seen your dad since the day of the funeral.”

“Oh? Who was that?”

“I think it was Mrs O'Keefe. But she's hardly ever here herself—not
what I'd call a regular. Hardly a Catholic at all. I think she must have meant she never saw him at the shops or supermarket.”

“They must just have missed one another,” said Annie.

They slipped into St Joseph's and took note of the people in the congregation whom they knew best. Mrs Wainwright was a good talker and a casual friend of their mother's, and she was there towards the back of the church without her husband. They slipped into the pew beside her. She turned and registered the neat, conservatively dressed pair, Matthew serious, Annie smiling up ingratiatingly. Annie was a sturdy girl without any great pretensions to prettiness, but she could present herself attractively. She had gone to great pains to do just that. She had an end in view; and when she had that, she could show great flair and determination.

“Matthew! Annie! This is a nice surprise.”

“We thought we ought to come. It's been a long time.”

“Yes, it has. And your poor mother would have wanted you to come. Dad's at home with the young ones, is he?”

“That's right. . . . Is that the new priest?”

“Yes. I don't know him at all well yet, but he seems to be very good.”

She said it as if evaluating the performance of a new quiz show host. Matthew and Annie looked at each other as the service began. There would be no need to use the side door after the service. They could just tag along with Mrs Wainwright if the priest didn't know her well. He would assume they were with her, were her children. The two began murmuring a prayer.

The service, even with a new priest leading it, seemed familiar and comforting. It was a still point in a shifting, uncertain, uncomfortable world. To say and sing well-known words
seemed like something to grip onto. When the service was over they trooped out in Mrs Wainwright's wake, and outside in the sunlight they shook hands with the priest.

“Hello, Mrs . . .”

“Wainwright.”

“And . . .?”

“Matthew and Annie.”

“Hello, Matthew and Annie.”

That was all. It was dead simple. Outside on the steps leading to the road they looked around for people to talk to. But Mrs Wainwright stepped in with a better solution.

“Why don't you come back with me and have a cup of tea and some cake?” she asked. “My husband's away on business, and I'm quite lonely in that big house.”

“Oh, I don't know . . .” Annie began.

“You go,” said Matthew. It seemed an ideal opportunity. “I'd better be getting back to Dad. The littlies get a bit much for him after a while.”

So Matthew started off in the direction of home. People clustered around St Joseph's greeted him in a friendly way, and one of them said, “Tell your dad we miss him at the Irish Club.” That made Matthew think, as he speeded up to get home and assure himself that all was all right with the youngest ones. The Irish Club would be the ideal place to pick up any gossip that was going round about Mrs O'Keefe and her activities. On the other hand, he could hardly go along there on his own. Though they did from time to time have children's parties. . . .

Annie, meanwhile, had started off with Mrs Wainwright. The substantial semis in the vicinity of St Joseph's were much in demand by Catholics, some of whom went to service at their church every morning. In the two-minute walk home, Mrs
Wainwright picked up a neighbour, Emily Porter, a voluble spinster who lived with her aged father and kept house for him. Mrs Wainwright said that since her husband was away on a business trip she was relieved of the burden of the traditional Sunday roast. “It's nice, of course, but nice to give it a miss as well.” Together they all settled down in the kitchen for tea and cakes and biscuits.

“I was glad to hear that your dad's coping all right,” said Mrs Wainwright, filling a kettle and fetching down tins of this and that. “He looked so poorly at the funeral.”

“He was very upset,” said Annie. “And he's never liked funerals. But he's coping fine.”

“Mrs O'Keefe says no one's set eyes on him,” said Emily Porter.

“Well, they wouldn't, would they? He's mum and dad to us now,” said Annie, thinking of the mumbling wreck in the little bedroom upstairs, more a child than a parent. “Mrs O'Keefe did come round one day, but Dad was out.”

“Well, you want to watch that one,” said Miss Porter with gloomy relish, wagging a finger. “She's probably out to get her claws into your dad.”

Annie was conscious of an excess of tension in Mrs Wainwright's back as she stood at her kitchen unit slicing up dark, fruity cake. That in itself told her something: Mrs Wainwright knew about her father and Mrs O'Keefe or at least had heard rumours, while Miss Porter had not.

“Oh, she'd never manage to do that,” Annie said. “Dad's not got over Mum's death yet.”

“Still, you want to watch out,” repeated Emily Porter, oblivious to her hostess's disapproval. “She's shameless, is Carmen O'Keefe. Remember a couple of years ago, Mary, when it was Joe Foster she was after? Well, she was more than after. They
hardly made any secret of it. People saw them all over the place, practically bolted together. Everyone thought it disgusting. And him a good Catholic, and a married man with kiddies.”

“Mrs O'Keefe has a husband, doesn't she?” Annie asked.

“Oh yes—Rob. He's on the oil rigs. It's when he's away for long periods that she gets up to her tricks. Or mostly, anyway, because he's a bit of a fool. It's been going on for years—there's a long line of men that have known more about her than they ought to, and we only know of the Catholic ones. I think it's disgusting she still comes to church.”

“She doesn't very often,” said Mrs Wainwright, turning round to set out plates on the kitchen table. “She wasn't there today, though her mother-in-law was.”

“Oh, is Connie O'Keefe over?” asked Emily Porter. “That must mean Rob is back from the rigs. She'd never come over just to see Carmen. They put up a front, but they don't get on. Maybe she'll keep her in order while she's here.”

“And maybe she won't,” said Mrs Wainwright, tight-lipped.

“Yes, you're right. Easier said than done. That big, strapping husband can't do it, not when he's around, so I don't suppose Connie can make much impression.”