Masters of the House (6 page)

“At this time of day?'

“He's got a special arrangement with Mrs O'Connor.”

“
Has
he?”

“And then he's going on to Harry Curtin's to talk about a part-time job.”

“Doesn't seem to mind leaving you on your own. You said he thought you were too young to baby-sit.”

“Oh, at night,” said Matthew. “This is daytime. That's different, isn't it?”

“Maybe,” said the woman, with a puzzled expression on her face. “So when are you expecting him home?”

“We're not really. He said it was a case of ‘expect me when you see me.' ”

As he said this, Matthew felt the sharp stab of reality: That was something his father had said very often during the months of their mother's pregnancy. And he'd said it because he and
this woman
 . . . The remembrance knocked another nail into the coffin of Matthew's respect for his father.

“Well, like I say, it's obvious you can cope,” said Mrs
O'Keefe, looking round the room and forcing a look of concern onto her hard face. “Looks clean and tidy to me. Mind you, I'm not one who believes in wearing themselves out dusting and scrubbing. My Rob always says, ‘It wasn't for your skill as a charlady I married you, Carmen.' Isn't he awful? He's on the rigs at the moment, so I get a bit of peace.”

She looked around the room again, seeming to have run out of things to say, but still reluctant to go.

“I suppose if you don't know when he'll be back . . .”

“No, we don't.”

She thought, her face becoming calculating in the most obvious way.

“I tell you what. It's obvious he feels he can leave you on your own, so there's no reason why him and me shouldn't have an early evening drink. I think I'll set a day—”

“Oh, I don't know—”

“Say next Wednesday. I'll be here next Wednesday at six, in the car, and we'll go for a quick drink at the Lamb.”

“I don't think we ought—”

The woman suddenly went still. The children were so used to occasional regular noises from upstairs that they had ceased to react to them. It took a second or so for them to realise that Mrs O'Keefe was reacting to the sound of the flush from the upstairs lavatory. When they did, they stiffened too. She looked around the room, where all four children were, and then directly at Matthew.

“So who the hell's upstairs, then?” she demanded.

“O
H, THAT'S JUST
A
UNTIE
M
AUREEN
,” said Matthew.

He asked himself when the woman had gone where the lie had come from. He asked himself the same thing fourteen years later when he was back in the house for the last time. He could not account for it other than as some kind of inspiration or gift of God. True, he had been naggingly conscious for some time that the lies he was telling were becoming horribly repetitive. And certainly, both he and Annie realised how easy it would be to be caught out in a lie, and perhaps he had prepared subconsciously a second line of fantasy as a defence. Yet it still seemed to him that Auntie Maureen was born in an instant, the creation of Mrs O'Keefe's question, the generous gift of a beneficent power, giving them temporary breathing space. Matthew never lost his belief in that power, watching over them, protecting them, in spite of all that happened later.

“Who the hell's she?” Mrs O'Keefe demanded belligerently.

“Oh, she's just come over to help look after us for a week or two,” said Matthew.

There was a moment or two's silence, tense and strained, as the woman digested this. Only Matthew and Annie were conscious that Greg was looking at them too, an expression of puzzlement on his small face.

“I thought you said you were alone in the house?”

They took up the challenge together.

“We are—as good as,” said Matthew.

“She gets horribly seasick,” said Annie. “She's useless for days afterwards.”

“We're looking after her more than she's looking after us,” chimed in Matthew. “Always up and down to the toilet. I expect when she gets over it she'll be more use.”

“Pity she doesn't fly,” said Mrs O'Keefe.

“Oh, she's terrified of flying.”

“Then she should bleeding well stay put, shouldn't she?”

It occurred to Matthew that the woman believed in Auntie Maureen but resented her. No doubt it was the idea of another woman in the home of her—But he shut his mind to what his father was, or had been, to this horrible creature.

“Oh, she's not the type to do that,” he said airily. “She's desperate to help. Even when she's not very much.”

“Oh, well, I suppose your dad knows what he's doing, inviting her here,” said Mrs O'Keefe, clutching her handbag and getting up to go. “She's not a permanency, is she?”

“Oh, no. She's got her own house, near Dublin. But her children are all grown up.”

“Sounds like the motherly type,” said Mrs O'Keefe with a sniff. “I never went in for motherly instinct myself . . . though I want to do my best for you lot, of course.”

The children stayed silent.

“Well . . .” Mrs O'Keefe was palpably reluctant, pausing at the sitting room door. “I suppose I'd better be going . . . if you really don't know when your dad will be home.”

“We don't.”

“Now mind you tell him. I'll be round to fetch him next Wednesday at six for a nice quiet drink in the Lamb. No need to hurry ourselves, is there, if you've got dear old Auntie Maureen to look after you. Your dad must be desperate for a pint and a bit of adult conversation.” They were in the kitchen again by now, and she was throwing these vaguely insulting scraps of conversation at them as they ushered her towards the back door. “Mind you tell him. Wednesday at six. And tell your Auntie Maureen I shall look forward to getting to know her.”

When the back door was shut and—after a suitable interval—locked, Matthew leaned his head against the cold, distempered wall of the kitchen, conscious that his shirt was dripping with sweat around the armpits. He felt he had just gone through a long and vicious fight, one all the worse for not being a physical one. This woman was an
opponent,
and a dangerous one. When he straightened himself up his eyes were still damp from the emotions of strain and frustration. He said to Annie, “We've got to think what to do.”

Again. They both realised they were now much deeper into the undergrowth with the advent of Mrs O'Keefe and the invention of Auntie Maureen. Mrs O'Keefe—
that woman,
as they henceforward called her between themselves—was clearly someone who would push herself into the house, would ask questions about everything and was already smelling rats. Auntie Maureen, having been mentioned to her, might need to be substantiated by further fantasies, either for Mrs O'Keefe or
for others. And further fantasies meant further possibilities of being caught out.

They slept on it and first talked about it next day in the five minutes they could walk together between dropping Greg and Jamie off at school and their own school gate, where they separated to join their different groups of friends.

“I think we've got to refuse to let her in,” said Annie, taking up the subject without preamble the moment they could.

“So do I. We can't let her in over and over again and find new excuses as to why Dad isn't at home. Quite apart from ‘Auntie Maureen.'”

“‘Auntie Maureen' we can drop. We only said she'd be here for a week or two.”

“I suppose so. She's dangerous. There's probably people at church who know we haven't got an Auntie Maureen.”

“We could say she's not a real auntie, just called that. A friend of Mother's, perhaps. But I agree, she's dangerous. It was brilliant, you inventing her, but we'll have to drop her.”

“That doesn't help about
that woman.
We've got to find some way of stopping her visiting.”

“The trouble is, I can't think of a reason.”

“Can't you?”

“I mean, Dad . . . went with her while Mum was pregnant. You'd think he'd be pleased to see her again.”

“Would you? Then why do you think he's like he is?”

They stopped walking, and Annie looked at him.

“Well, with Mum dying, and the baby . . . I mean, it sent him off his head. . . .”

“With
guilt.
For having . . . done
that
with her while Mum was pregnant. He said once when I was there that he hadn't enjoyed . . .
it
while she was pregnant. I bet it was then that
that
woman
went all out to get him, and now he's gone mad with guilt.”

They started walking again.

“I think you're right. But what do we do?”

“We
never
open the door again. Keep it locked and the chain up. Tell Greg he's never to open it. When she comes we'll just shout through it.”

“But what shall we say?”

“That Dad has forbidden us to let her in.”

Annie thought again, then turned to him, smiling.

“I like the idea of that.”

In the days that followed, the plan was sophisticated somewhat. Both front and back doors were left permanently locked, and they shouted “Who is it?” before they opened up. There were few enough callers. If it had not been for the threat of Mrs O'Keefe, the children might have felt that interest in them and their affairs had all but died away. The milkman, coming for his money on Thursday evening, expressed his approval.

“You're careful who you open the door to, are you?”

“Yes, we are.”

“That's very sensible. Dad not in?”

“Not at the moment. He generally goes to see Father Coffey on Thursday evenings.”

The milkman was not a Catholic, so he was unlikely to learn anything that contradicted this last statement. None of the family, in fact, had ever seen the new priest at St Joseph's, and they tried to avoid members of the congregation. Annie had perceived the milkman as a danger, since he was the only person who called regularly at the house. She was pleased when he nodded unsuspiciously, took his money and walked away. She regarded her remark as another of those inspirations, though
the fact was that both she and Matthew were getting better at lying.

They had no doubt that
that woman
would arrive on cue, and the older ones were very tensed up on Wednesday evening. At five to six a car drew up in the road outside, and Matthew and Annie went to the kitchen. They positioned themselves close to the door and listened as the front gate clicked and high-heeled shoes came clip-clop down the path.

The knock on the door was loud, authoritative. They left a second or two before they called out.

“Who is it?”

“It's Carmen O'Keefe, Matthew. Come to take your father out for a treat.”

That last touch enraged him. His voice came louder than he had intended.

“He isn't coming. He says that we're never to let you into the house again.”

There was a moment's silence outside.

“There's been some silly mistake, Matthew.”

“No, there hasn't,” shouted Annie. “He says he never wants to see or talk to you again.”

“Is your father there?”

“Yes, he is.”

“Let me in. I want to talk to him.”

“No. He's told us we mustn't. He says he'll never have anything more to do with you.”

“Go away! You're horrible!” This contribution came from Greg, attracted to the kitchen by the shouting. Annie felt he detracted from the seriousness of the occasion, and bundled him back into the front room.

Again there was a moment's silence.

“Look, there's some mistake here.”

“No there isn't.”

“Your dad's misunderstood something I've said.”

“No he hasn't. He says you're disgusting. He says he'll never have anything more to do with you as long as he lives. So go away and don't come back.”

A pause of indecision, then the heels, emphatic with indignation, clip-clopped back down the path and out through the front gate. The children stood looking at each other as they heard the car start up, turn in the drive, then charge out of the cul-de-sac which was Calverley Row.

“We've won!” said Annie.

“For the moment,” said Matthew.

 • • • 

But it did seem for a time as if they had scored a magnificent victory. Nothing more was heard of Carmen O'Keefe. They expected her to call or ring, but she did not. The only time the telephone rang, it was their mother's brother in Ireland, and his interest was purely perfunctory: When he heard they were all right he said he would tell his sister and rang off with assurances that they could always call him if there was anything they needed. He had never had anything in common with Dermot Heenan and didn't want especially to speak to him.

So Mrs O'Keefe seemed to have gone out of their life as decisively as she had come into it. They thought about it and talked about it and came to the conclusion she must have realised from their words that their father was disgusted with himself over what he had done while his wife was so close to death, and quite naturally did not want to have anything more to do with her. Any danger that she might guess at the real consequences that the affair had had they put to the back of their minds.

But they kept up their precautions. The door was always locked, and even if they were in the garden they locked the door from the outside for fear that she might arrive and simply march in and go upstairs.

“It was like a prison,” said Matthew all those years later as he marched up and down the front room, the young, apparently confident manager of a business that was somehow managing to hold its head up during another terrible recession. “For a time after she'd come into our lives and then gone out it was like being in prison. We'd locked Dad away, but we'd locked ourselves away with him. I suppose that's what prisons are: They lock up the keepers with the criminals.”