Mercy of St Jude by Wilhelmina Fitzpatrick

Ma, don’t. Anyway, everything go okay?”
    â€œBaby’s still in hospital.” She wrestles with the lid on the beets.
    â€œWhat happened? Did you talk to Mrs. Green?”
    â€œYou knows that Violet. Thinks her daughter’s the first ever gave birth—”
    â€œMa!” He takes the jar from her and opens it. “What’s wrong with the baby?”
    â€œAh, nothing. Low blood, bad blood, something like that. Out soon, I’m sure.”
    â€œI hope it’s okay. That’d be awful if anything happened.”
    â€œYes, awful. Unless it’s soft in the head. Or retarded.”
    â€œI mean, how do you ever get over it when something happens to your baby?”
    â€œGo on, they’re usually fine, sure. Unless you’re a Hann.” She proceeds to cut thick slices from a fresh loaf of bread.
    â€œDead babies all over the place. Hanns thinks only Griffins deserves dead babies, or retarded ones.”
    Gerry notices that she has managed, as she so often does, to twist the conversation around to the Hanns. And he, as he so often does, ignores it. “Mrs. Green must be some worried about them.”
    Sadie grunts. “I was there the other day and that Violet was on the phone for ages, talking to the nurse and the doctor and heaven only knows who, probably the priest and the nuns, God himself even. Swear no one else ever had a problem. Yapping away while I scrubbed her dirt. Blathering on about that Cathy. Thought she’d never shut up. I said nothing, kept my head down the toilet and did my job. Let her rattle on. Don’t know for hard times, that one don’t.”
    â€œDon’t be like that, Ma.” His mother can really act the bitch when she’s in the mood, or when she has a few drinks in. And even though he knows she’s a good person deep down, she can be hard to take when he’s so tired.
    â€œLike what?” Sadie throws out her hands in righteous innocence, still holding the oversized bread knife. “I’m only just saying what’s the truth. That crowd don’t think of nobody but theirself.”
    They’re only words, no sticks, no stones, just words, he tells himself. Close your mind and eat something and go to bed out of it just like always. But he can’t. Does it have to do with seeing Annie again, he wonders, with being reminded of his mother’s role in what happened? Is that why he is suddenly so attuned to, and irritated, by her, despite the fact that he has long forgiven her that role?
    â€œThey’re good people, Ma. You might not like them, but that’s no reason to go around slagging them all the time.”
    â€œHah, good people my arse.”
    â€œPlease, would you just—”
    Her free hand springs up. “Don’t be telling me, mister. I knows them way better than you. Been putting up with the likes of them all my frigging life. I got the goods on that lot. Hanns are no better than us.”
    â€œHanns? I thought we were talking about Cathy Green.”
    â€œGreens, Hanns, no difference to me. Thinks they’re so good, looking down their noses at us. Butter wouldn’t melt. Still I don’t hold no grudge, no sir, not me. Live and let live is my motto. Do the right thing by your neighbour, the right thing be done back to you. How hard is that? Lucinda, spiteful bitch. Leaving her own family off the invite list. So we’re not kissing cousins. No reason to snub her snotty nose at me. No, sir. Keeps on doing it, though, again and again. Bloody Hanns.”
    Gerry wishes he’d kept his mouth shut. “You’re right, Ma. Of course you know them all better than me. You’ve been around here forever, haven’t you, girl?” He yawns again. “Lord, I don’t think I’m going to last much longer tonight.”
    â€œRight? ‘Course I’m right,” she says, still sawing the loaf of bread which has begun to crumple under the