Secrets of Our Hearts

Alas, far from growing used to it, tireless in their determination, one or another of the Beasty women was there to mutter and to scowl on each future occasion that Sean’s lover came to visit. Even more humiliatingly, the neighbours had become aware of the rift. At his current arrival, there was a small audience to witness the antics of his reception committee. Worst of all, though, for an uncle who loved them, Niall’s children were being indoctrinated by this bitterness.

‘Don’t do that!’ Ellen slapped a hand that had come up to wave as she and her mother took their turn at observation, crammed into their doorway in an effort to shield themselves from providing entertainment for the neighbours, whilst at the same time maintaining their vigilance towards Sean and his fancy piece.

‘I wasn’t waving at the lady,’ protested a forlorn Juggy, rubbing her hand, her skinny body squeezed between mother and grandmother’s hips. ‘Only at Uncle Sean.’

‘You don’t wave to either of them!’ her mother bent to warn her in a manner and tone that could not be misinterpreted. ‘And she’s certainly no lady!’

Though Sean translated the comment only too well as he closed the door upon it, his little niece asked innocently: ‘What do you mean?’

‘Never mind!’ Ellen shoved her daughter back inside, she and her mother following. ‘You do as you’re told and don’t say a word nor make a gesture to either of them. He’s not your uncle any more.’

The child’s father was to endorse this, both in word and deed. In a change of tactic, from then on whenever encountering his brother, Niall would simply walk past as if the other were invisible. Hence, his children were to act by example. It was all very sad for one who had doted upon them.

Yet however some might like to pretend that Sean did not exist, others continued to watch and to criticise his every move. Which was how they were to discover that the hussy had finally stayed the night.

This was the ultimate outrage. At the sight of Sean and Emma emerging together at eleven thirty that Sunday morning, Nora abandoned her sentry duty and charged like a rhinoceros from the house, running directly across the street and arriving at such a velocity that she almost bowled her son-in-law over in her attempt to slap his face. She would have struck Emma too had Sean not quickly recovered from his shock to grab her arm.

‘You’re disgusting, the pair of you!’ Nora was snarling at them by the time Niall rushed over to referee, and to try to hold her back as she strained to be at those who had demeaned her kin. Ellen, Dolly and Harriet had rushed to join in the hounding, forming a barrier around Sean and the woman so that they could not escape. ‘Besmirching my daughter’s memory with that guttersnipe – where did she sleep, that’s what I want to know!’

Though deeply embarrassed by the attention this was drawing – everyone dressed for the performance in Sunday clothes – Niall wanted to know too.

The mark of retribution glowing on his cheek, an angry Sean tried to disentangle himself, whilst at the same time trying to protect Emma from Harriet, the most dominant of his sisters-in-law, who kept aiming vicious prods. ‘We don’t have to put up with this!’

But Niall caught his arm, ‘Yes you do! You owe Nora an explanation as to how you’ve got the gall to have another woman in your wife’s bed!’

Cornered, Sean managed to wrench his arm free, then drew a frightened Emma closer to him, barking at his accusers, ‘If you’d have been talking to me you might have found out before this – might have been invited to our wedding!’

Totally shocked, they stopped to gawp at him, lending him the chance to carve an exit from their oppressive circle, though once free he did not run but stood his ground and faced them.

Nora was first to recover, her accusation shrill with disbelief. ‘You can’t be married. We’d have heard from Father Finnegan!’

Ruffled of temper and clothing, Sean was still putting them to order as he explained, ‘We got married at Emma’s church.’

‘Where’s that then?’ grilled Niall.

‘St Oswald’s.’

There was a consensus of derision over the Protestant venue. ‘Well, you’re not really married then!’ countered Nora.

Sean remained firm. ‘The certificate says we are.’

‘If you think I’m letting you bring your floozie to live in my daughter’s house—’

‘Nora!’ A lock of black hair tumbling over his brow, Sean leaned towards her with an expression of determination. ‘I’m very sorry but Evelyn’s dead. She isn’t coming back. I loved her but I can’t keep the house as a shrine. I’ve got to get on with my life. So it isn’t Evelyn’s house any more, it’s Emma’s.’ Taking advantage of their stunned faces, he dashed his hair back into place, straightened his spine, then said, with more equanimity than he felt, ‘If you’d like me to introduce you …?’

‘No, we bloody wouldn’t!’ yelled Harriet who, at twenty-five, might be the youngest, but had inherited the lion’s share of her mother’s obnoxious character. Whilst there might be name-calling from Ellen and Dolly there was the definite threat of violence here, and Sean had no wish to hang around and sample it.

In an act of finality, he turned his back on them all, muttering, ‘I knew it’d be a waste of time,’ as he and his wife escaped up the street, shoulders braced against a tirade of insults.

‘You needn’t think you’re getting away with this!’

‘I don’t see as there’s much you can do about it,’ sighed Niall to his mother-in-law, who was to repeat this threat as he shepherded her and everyone else indoors. ‘I’m as angry as the next person. I think he’s despicable, but—’

‘There’s one thing I can do about it right now!’ declared Nora, in warlike form, gathering her daughters. ‘Come on – you an’ all!’ And her hand made a graphic summons at Niall as she led the procession back to Sean’s house.

No one locked their doors around here for there was nothing to steal; Nora found something though, as she barged straight in and made for a cottage piano. ‘We’ll have this, for a start! Ellen, grab that end.’ She herself took hold of the piano and started to heave it, groaning and squeaking, across the brown lino, her daughter shoving from the other end. ‘Dolly, grab them Staffordshire dogs! Hat, you do the kitchen!’

‘You’re taking all his stuff?’ questioned a slightly amazed Niall, for the moment hanging back.

‘It’s not his property, it’s ours!’ Nora grunted and grimaced over the shifting of the piano, banging her shins as she fought to manoeuvre it over the bunched-up carpet that acted as a wedge against its wheel, her anger anaesthetising the pain. ‘I gave our Eve most of the things in this house when she got married, and I’m damned if that little bitch is having the benefit – now are you going to help us or just stand there gawping?’

It took Niall only a few seconds to realise that what Nora said was quite true: she had donated most of the furniture here and many of the utensils, for she had done the same for all her daughters. With only the briefest qualm that Sean would come home and have no chair to sit on – but had he not brought it on himself? – he began to assist with the removal. Nudging Nora aside and telling his wife to leave this to him, he freed the piano from the bunched-up carpet, then hauled it along the passage, its castors emitting an ear-splitting squeal of protest before he hefted it over the doorstep, bumped it onto the pavement, down the kerb and across the street, eventually to install it in his own front parlour alongside Nora’s bed – for this was where she slept.

‘I’d rather have to climb over the blasted thing to get to me bed than let him keep it!’ rasped his mother-in-law.

Then, under the curious eyes of the neighbours and anxious children, he and his angry female bandits proceeded to travel back and forth, transporting piece after piece of furniture, box after box of utensils and pictures, until there was no further room to cram in anything more. All that remained in Sean’s living room was a table, an old sofa, and the echo of contemptuous voices.

For once, having washed their hands of the affair, Niall and his womenfolk were not outside to meet Sean’s return. Had they been so, they might have glimpsed through that window, denuded of its lace curtains, the heartbreaking scene of a man come home to such wanton pillage that he broke down in tears.

‘What have we done to them that’s so bad, Em?’ he sobbed quietly to the wife who tried to comfort him. ‘My own brother treating me like this – I know he was in on it – leaving you with not even a kettle.’

Emma crooned and patted him tenderly, donating her handkerchief. ‘Don’t worry about me, dear. Look!’ Temporarily she rushed away, trying to sound cheerful and to salvage a ray of hope. ‘There’s a little pan here we can use to boil some water, then we’ll have a cup of tea and make a list of the things we need to buy.’

‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?’ Sean’s tone was desolate as he looked about him at the plundered room. ‘Yesterday was the happiest time of my life …’

‘Aw, mine too!’ Teary-eyed, she hurried back, linked his arm and squeezed her support, trying to bolster him. ‘It still can be if we refuse to let this get us down. I’m sorry about all your things, but we can get some second-ha—’

‘It’s not pots and pans I’m bothered about!’ He dashed away his angry tears. ‘What gets me is the spite that’s behind it – that they left you with nothing to manage your house with!’

‘I think that’s the whole point,’ Emma told him quietly with a sad little smile, knowing he was not cross with her but with them. ‘They don’t see it as my house … and neither do I, truth be known.’

He dealt a rapid nod of understanding. ‘Well, we can soon remedy that! After we’ve had our cup of tea, I’m off back out to put it up for sale – in fact I don’t think I can even bear to spend another night near that wicked lot.’

‘You might not have to,’ came the sardonic reply from Emma, and she made for the stairs to check whether Nora had taken their bed too.

But no, it was still there, scorned and all alone in the bedroom.

‘Well, she wouldn’t take that, would she?’ scathed Sean, wandering up to join her, his face bleak.

‘No, but she’s pinched all the spare linen.’ Having opened a cupboard, Emma quickly closed the door on empty shelves, again trying to make light of the incident. ‘There’s one good thing: we won’t have much to shift, will we?’

Sean tried his best to raise a chuckle, saying as he embraced her tightly, ‘As long as I’ve got you I’m not bothered about owt else.’ But it was only half true, for he just could not get over the fact that such a deed had been perpetrated by his own flesh and blood. He doubted he could ever forgive that.

And upon leaving to throw themselves on the charity of Emma’s parents, for however long it might take to sell his house, he threw one final look of disgust at Niall’s abode.

‘Well, that’s me and him finished. As far as I’m concerned he’s dead. I wouldn’t even go to his bloody funeral.’

‘Don’t say that. It’s not Christian,’ his wife scolded softly.

‘Neither is reducing your own brother to a pauper,’ muttered Sean. ‘From now on, he’s no kin of mine.’

3

Whilst continuing to be the subject of gossip for many a day amongst the neighbours, Sean was rarely mentioned in his brother’s household again, except for when Father Finnegan or one of the nuns dropped in on their parishioners, whereupon the sinner was roundly castigated in his absence, for marrying out of the Church. Other than this, the mere whisper of his name became taboo.

And yet, Niall observed, when any residue of anger was allowed a voice, it was not over Sean’s disloyalty, but more his financial gain.

‘Is there no justice?’ spat Ellen, on learning from their next-door neighbour, on this autumn Saturday afternoon, how much her brother-in-law had netted from the sale of his house. ‘The jammy bloody devil, why should he and that tart be rewarded when it’s our lass who put all the hard work into it?’

Though similarly angry, after a brief outpouring, her mother gave stoical reply. ‘Well, we did what we could to rescue Eve’s things. Short of taking t’house down brick by brick there’s nowt much else we could have done. Thanks for letting us know, though, Mrs Lavelle. Will you stay and have a cup of tea?’

Clad in black, with an air that nothing good would ever happen to her again, the neighbour gave one of her typically heavy widow’s sighs. ‘Aye, I might as well; I’ve nowt else to see to.’ And she flopped her rear onto an Edwardian armchair, signalling for her daughter, Gloria, who accompanied her, to do the same.

Nora hefted the teapot at the prettier, but slightly vacant-looking woman with the limpid blue eyes. ‘Will you have one, Gloria?’

‘Aye, she will.’

Her mother answering for her, having rarely been allowed to make a decision in all her thirty-nine years, the downtrodden Gloria took a seat. Though she needed no encouragement to take an interest in her neighbours – at least in one of them – and whilst her mother did all the talking for her, Gloria herself proceeded to cast a series of adoring smiles at Niall. Sadly, none of these was noticed, for Niall was involved with making shuttlecocks for the children with the bunch of feathers he had collected on his travels along the railway line, trying to concentrate on this whilst the women speculated over the people who had moved into his brother’s old house.

‘We’ve been wondering what he does for a living,’ said Harriet. ‘Do you know, Mrs Lavelle?’

‘We think he’s a gunslinger, from the way he walks,’ cackled Dolly, holding her arms away from her sides to demonstrate.

‘That’s from hefting stretchers for ten years.’ Mrs Lavelle knew everything. ‘He’s an ambulance man.’

Nora had been studying Gloria. ‘Where’s them nice new teeth you bought, Glo?’

‘They hurt her, so she only wears ’em on Sundays,’ provided Mrs Lavelle.

Juggy’s head popped around the jamb then. ‘It’s spitting. Can I go play in Kathleen’s passage?’

‘Yes,’ said her mother, ‘so long as you take Brian.’

‘I will!’ called Juggy on her way back out. ‘He’s gonna be the patient.’

‘Well, don’t be doing any operations on him!’ shouted Ellen, then murmuring to the women, ‘We don’t want any bits missing when he comes home.’

Dolly’s laugh was like the high-pitched bleating of a goat. A length of twine nipped between his teeth, Niall’s face tensed in irritation, whilst his wife briefly left the gathering to look from the window and check on the whereabouts of their other offspring.

After exhausting all the latest scandals, Mrs Lavelle said, ‘Well, we’ll have to be going soon. Oh, I nearly forgot!’ She grabbed the paper carrier that her daughter had been patiently nursing, and proceeded to display a tablecloth. ‘We really came in to show you what we found for our Gloria in Rhodes Brown’s sale.’

Harriet, before even remarking on any attribute of the cloth itself, asked immediately, ‘How much was it?’

Niall glanced at Ellen and shook his head – Harriet always demanded to know the price of everything – then he returned his attention to the shuttlecock and tried to ignore the female babble.

‘Two bob!’ came the boastful reply.

There were murmurs of admiration over the bargain. Where Gloria was toothless, Dolly had an overabundance, and these were bared like a row of tombstones as she inspected the purchase with exaggerated interest. ‘And is this for your bottom drawer, Gloria?’ From the way she addressed the woman, who was twelve years her senior, one would think Gloria was a little child. ‘Eh, you must have loads of stuff by now, you are a lucky lass …’

But after the visitors had gone this sentiment underwent an addition, a gleam of malicious laughter in Dolly’s eye. ‘She’ll be lucky if she ever gets to use them, an’ all. Bottom drawer’ll collapse under the weight of all that stuff before she finds anyone who’ll have her.’

‘Ooh, you mean cat,’ scolded Ellen. Niall also cast a disapproving look for this two-faced conduct, which was another thing that irritated him besides Dolly’s bleating laugh, the latter grating his ears yet again.

‘Well, she doesn’t do herself any favours, does she?’ pointed out Dolly, her face creased in mirth. ‘You’d think by the time she reached that age her mother would have bought her a brassiere. She looks like a sackful of piglets off to the butcher’s .’

‘Well, at least she’s got some piglets.’ Harriet spoke bluntly, as she rose to take away the cups, her eyes upon the other’s flat chest. ‘You want to watch it, you might have to eat your words – you being the last one of us left on the shelf.’

Niall shared a wince with Ellen, but at least with Harriet one knew where one stood; she always said things to your face. Satisfied with the positioning of the feathers around the cork, he secured the twine.

Dolly bridled, though waited until her more forceful sister was out of the room to mutter, ‘Smug devil. Just because she’s cornered herself a man doesn’t mean he’ll be daft enough to wed her. You’d think she was going out with the Prince of Wales. It’s not as if he’s anything to write home about – even our Nye’s better-looking than him.’

Whilst Ellen and Nora chuckled, Niall gasped offence. ‘What do you mean, “even”?’ Using his palm to bat the shuttlecock onto the table, he leaned back and picked up a newspaper.

‘Well, at any rate, Gloria seems to think you’re the bee’s knees,’ Nora told him, with a sly look at her daughters.

‘Yes, I shall have to watch her,’ teased Ellen.

Niall blustered with embarrassment and rustled the pages of his newspaper. ‘What’re you on about, you daft beggars?’

‘Oh, we’ve seen her making sheep’s eyes at you! Why do you think she’s always popping in here?’

‘She’ll have to ask her mam’s permission first,’ bleated Dolly.

‘You’re all bloody daft,’ muttered Niall grumpily. Then, as three drenched children swept in to ask if he would partake in a game of cards, he threw aside the newspaper with a cry of surrender. ‘I can see I’m not going to be allowed to read!’

‘Eh, don’t go tearing it,’ warned Ellen with a wink at her mother. ‘You might miss seeing a report about your wolf.’

Whilst this was a jest, the children took it seriously, each of them jumping in with their own query, ten-year-old Dominic being first. ‘Have you seen it kill owt, Dad?’

‘Not yet.’ Niall lit a cigarette, its smoke overpowering the reek of wet hair and clothing.

‘John Mahoney’s dog killed Reg Wilson’s rabbit this morning, and there was all this blood, and purple guts hanging ou—’

‘Yes, thank you!’ Niall called a halt to spare the younger ones’ sensitivities, then addressed the boy’s mother. ‘You’ll have to stop feeding him meat. He’s getting to be a right bloodthirsty devil.’

Dom’s smile burst forth.

‘Are you scared of it, Dad?’ tendered five-year-old Batty, his cheeks pink with cold.

‘Father’s not scared of anything, are you?’ Honor informed her brother in a quietly disapproving voice that said, how could he even ask.

Yes, thought Niall, sometimes I am scared, scared that this is all there is to life, to undergo the same routine day after day, being tormented by female drivel year after year until I die; to be nothing more than the wage earner. But to his offspring he said, ‘Me, scared? Nah? If he shows them big teeth at me I’ll flatten him with me shovel and bring him home to make a fur coat for your mam.’

Re-entering to the children’s giggles, Harriet pricked up her ears. ‘Our Nell’s getting a fur coat?’

Ellen hooted. ‘On the pittance he earns? That’ll be the day.’

‘Shame, I could have borrowed it when I go to meet Pete’s family.’ Harriet’s young man was a comparatively recent acquisition, but already both were smitten.

‘I doubt it would impress them,’ smirked Ellen. ‘It’s that so-called wolf he’s supposed to have seen again. I reckon he needs specs.’

‘I’ve told you, it’s not just me!’ objected Niall, a smile on his face yet slightly annoyed that his wife should denigrate him thus, and in front of his children too. Even if it was intended as a jest it was no way for a woman to address the breadwinner. ‘All the other lads have seen it.’

‘They’re having you on!’ Ellen was relentless in her teasing. ‘I bet one of them’s got hold of a big dog and touched it up with a tin of paint.’

‘Don’t believe me then!’ Cigarette in mouth, Niall dismissed the laughing doubters, but remained adamant as he dealt out cards to his children for a game of Happy Families. ‘Dick Kelly says he’s going to set a trap for it. You’ll be laughing on the other side of your faces when he does.’

‘Well, don’t be fetching the stinky old thing home here,’ warned his wife. ‘If I’m ever lucky enough to get a fur coat I’d like it to be genuine.’

However, by the time autumn was in full flush, what Ellen had assumed to be a figment of her husband’s imagination turned out to be quite real. Niall and his workmates had seen it a few times now; but more pertinently it had earned a wider notoriety for killing and partly devouring sheep, its gruesome attacks being reported in the newspapers. It was definitely not a dog, said the experts. And there was Niall’s name in print, being one of those witnesses interviewed. So they had to believe him now, didn’t they?

On the contrary, they teased and tormented him even more, Nora and her daughters, that the following Sunday during dinner, Harriet decreeing mockingly, ‘Eh, he’ll do anything to make himself look important!’

Smarting beneath his fixed grin, feeling his children’s eyes on him as they watched for a reaction, Niall continued in his stoic silent manner to eat his dinner, and awaited his wife’s contribution. But for a change Ellen stuck up for her husband, laying down her knife to lean over and pat him, saying with genuine affection, ‘Aw, he’s important to us, aren’t you, dear?’

Niall returned her smile, half-expecting some clever comment from one of the others.

So it was no surprise when Dolly added, ‘Aye, if we didn’t have him who else could we poke fun at?’

‘I’m sure you’d find somebody, Dol,’ muttered Niall, which everyone took as a joke.

Then the clink of cutlery displaced chatter as all became intent on the delicious roast.

After dinner, with Nora and Dolly in the scullery washing the pots, Harriet ironing work overalls, and Ellen escorting her children to Sunday school, Niall relaxed in his brown leatherette armchair and took up the newspaper, which had so far remained unread due to morning Mass. This was his favourite time of day.

He must have been napping though, for when the children came home he was jolted awake to find the paper in a crumpled heap on his lap. Refreshed, he laughed at himself and greeted them.

‘Look what I’ve got, Dad!’ From under his jacket Batty presented a small toy car.

‘Why, you little demon!’ scolded his mother, then quickly explained to her husband, ‘The fly beggar must have picked it up whilst I wasn’t looking.’

Niall was at once stern. ‘Eh, now then, Bartholomew Doran, what have I told you? You can’t have things unless you’ve got the money to pay for them.’

‘It doesn’t belong to anybody,’ protested the innocent. ‘It were just there on the road.’

‘Is this the sort of thing you’ve learned at Sunday school?’ demanded his father. ‘No! Now, take it back. There’ll be a little boy looking for that.’

‘But he wouldn’t have lost it if he’d looked after it,’ reasoned Batty. ‘You told me people don’t deserve to have things if they don’t look after them.’

‘Never mind what I said!’ retorted Niall firmly, his voice rising. ‘And you can stop trying to wheedle your way round me. It’s not yours, now take it back to where you found it.’ He shook his head in disbelief at Ellen. ‘How did we raise such a freebooter?’

Covering a smile, his wife led the little boy away to replace the stolen item. Niall spent a few moments chatting to his other offspring before they were made to attend certain duties, at which point he rustled his newspaper to order and resumed reading.