Mother’s Only Child by Anne Bennett Page B

into Derry. Now I am here it is pointless the two of us waiting.’
    It was, and Bella was tired. ‘Well, I’ll be off then, if you are sure?’
    ‘Quite sure,’ Barney told her, and Bella made her way home.
    Barney noted Maria’s flushed face and dancing eyes just as she noted the glass beside the large bottle of poteen, which was half empty. She was annoyed to find Barney sitting there as if he owned the place, and even more annoyed when he said he’d sent Bella home.
    ‘You had no right.’
    ‘I had every right,’ Barney said. ‘She’d been on her feet all day and was tired, yawning like a good one. I sent her home as a kindness to her, and said I would wait for you. Fine consideration you had for the woman doing you a favour, for you are powerfully late.’
    Maria flushed with embarrassment, because she knew Barney had a point. ‘Yes, I didn’t mean it to be such a long night. We went for a drink after we’d been in to see Daddy.’
    Barney’s innards were twisted with jealousy for Greg Hopkins, who’d had Maria’s company all night, but he remembered Seamus telling him not to fret when he’d complained before. ‘Your man will be back to soldiering soon,’ he’d said, ‘and the way clear for you.’ So Barney swallowed the anger.
    ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ Maria asked him.
    ‘I needed to talk to you.’
    ‘It’s very late, as you pointed out,’ Maria said. ‘Couldn’t it have waited?’
    ‘I didn’t think so,’ Barney said. ‘We need to discuss the boatyard.’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ Maria said. ‘I didn’t know you’d engaged Colm, Willie’s grandson.’
    ‘He’s left school now and was for ever asking me if I could get him set on.’
    ‘Even so,’ Maria said, ‘it should have been discussed.’
    ‘I talked it over with your father,’ Barney said. ‘All right, perhaps I should have mentioned it to you as well, but the point is the boatyard barely makes enough to pay the boy, so I have got another job.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘It’s delivering supplies over the border to the naval staff.’
    ‘Oh,’ Maria said again, surprised. ‘Are you employed by the military then?’
    ‘No, it’s a private concern.’
    Barney didn’t elaborate further. He didn’t say he was joining Seamus to smuggle poteen and rationed goods across the border, bringing back petrol, fertiliser and animal feed. All these things were transported under the cover of darkness, as was Seamus’s setting-up of card schools, which now Barney would be involved in. They had special packs of cards and many tricks to fleece the sailors of their money, especially when the sailors’ brains were addled with poteen.
    But Maria wasn’t suspicious. In her opinion the services had to have supplies and the job seemed a legitimate one.
    ‘I’ve told Colm in the afternoons I’ll still be around to deal with anything he can’t handle,’ Barney said.
    ‘I appreciate that.’
    ‘Least I can do,’ Barney said, pouring himself another large glass of poteen. He proffered the bottle in Maria’s direction. ‘Want one?’
    Maria shook her head. She was more than tired—shattered suddenly—and she really wanted to be rid of Barney so that she could lie in bed and think about the new future Greg had offered her.
    Barney saw the dreamy look in Maria’s eyes. Christ! For two pins he call that Greg out and pound him to pulp. And then what? said a little voice in his head. You would be the one up before the magistrate and Maria would never want anything to do with you everagain. Wait till he’s away and you are not before you move in.
    ‘I’ll be off then,’ he said to Maria. ‘Will I see you tomorrow?’
    ‘Probably.’
    Probably, thought Barney. One time it would have been ‘of course’, but that was before lover boy’s appearance. Well, he would have patience. It wasn’t something he was noted for, but he imagined he could learn it as quick as the next man if he had to.
    Early the next evening, Greg took Maria