WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO STOP BEING SUCH A STUPID little fool and start growing up?” The Sarge was right up in Maureen’s face, spittle flying, eyes flashing in fury. Maureen had gone to Princess Street to say goodbye to Kathleen and promise she would bring Kathleen up to Montreal to live with her as soon as ever Maureen got settled away. But in her new guise as saucy-as-a-shitfly Maureen, she’d opened her mouth and boasted to the Sarge that she’d found her baby. Now she was paying the price for that boast.
“That youngster was adopted, and the ones that adopted it, they’re protected from foolish-arse teenage girls stupid enough to open up their legs to the first fella who asked them and get caught in the bargain. Oh, get a dust of sense, for God’s sakes. Even you can’t be that stupid as to believe that if you, nothing but a chit of a child yourself, got that youngster back then everything is going to be hunky-dory and all your dreams are going to come true. Oh, give your head a shake, you stupid little moron. Open up your eyes and take a fuckin’ look around. If having youngsters was the key to happiness, then wouldn’t I be cagged off on cloud nine? ‘Oh, if only I had my little baby, everything would be all right.’” The Sarge minced about doing a not bad imitation of Maureen if, in fact, Maureen’s voice was up five or six octaves and she was severely delayed in her brain function. Normally, at this point, Maureen would have cracked right the fuck up and been reduced to a flurry of useless oaths, but today she stood her ground.
“Like I said, I already know where my baby is and I know where the people who got him live.”
For a moment, the Sarge seemed to be thrown, but she quickly rallied with, “Yea, that’s what you think, you mindless little retard.”
“Maureen’s not retarded; I’m retarded. Mom said.” Kathleen piped up from the sidelines.
“Shut up!” the Sarge snarled at Kathleen. “Those adoption papers, they’re sealed, legally sealed for the life of that youngster. Nobody can get at ’em, nobody can unseal them, not the mother, not the youngster, not anyone.”
“Yea, well someone did,” Maureen said.
“Oh, don’t be a bigger fool than you already are, Maureen. It can’t be done, I’m telling ya.”
“Yea, and I’m telling you that it can be done. It can be done and it is done.”
Maureen’s mother moved in on Maureen, poking her in the chest, driving her back against the wall. “You don’t tell me anything, you little shitfucker.”
Maureen’s father almost walked into the room, but thought better of it and pitched against the archway between the front hall and the front room. He said, “Now, Edna, that’s not the best. Reenie’s only visiting . . .”
Maureen’s mother didn’t even dignify him with a scornful look, let alone an answer. Raymond came in the front door, took one look at the crowd in the living room and beat it up over the stairs. The Sarge bawled up at him, “And what in the name of Christ do you think you’re doin’ trackin’ dirt up over those stairs? Get down here and take off them dirty big boots before I blinds ya.”
Raymond skulked back down and, hoping to get the Sarge’s attention off him, chimed in with “What was the old man just saying about Reenie?”
The Sarge turned a look of withering scorn on Maureen’s father and said, “What odds now what that was saying. That should just keep its mouth shut if it knows what’s good for it.”
“Mom, I got a flight booked for Montreal tomorrow, and I’m gonna be on it.”
“Yea, not if I throws you down over the stairs first and breaks both your legs you won’t be on it.”
“Yes, I will so,” said Maureen. “Even if you blind, cripples and crucifies me, I’m still going to Montreal, and when I get there, I’m going to find my baby.”
“Yea, Montreal,” the Sarge spat out. “That’s the proper place for the likes of you. That’s all you need now, up sluttin’ around Montreal, welcoming flags of all nations, and don’t you for one second, my dear, think that you can come crawling back here again when you gets yourself in trouble. Don’t think you can sashay in here so as I’ll take care of you and whatever new little bastard you got streeling in after ya. I got enough to look after here, weighted down with a bunch of”—the Sarge took a look around the room, searching for a word low enough to describe her children—“bitch’s bastards,” she finally said.
“Mom, mom, mom, are we the bastards? Mom, mom, mom, but if we’re bastards—are we the bastards, Mom? ’Cause if we’re the bastards, that means you’re the bitch.”
The Sarge took a step toward Kathleen. Maureen stepped in between them. The Sarge kept coming, but Maureen didn’t do her usual back-down. The Sarge was now in Maureen’s face, giving her a hard look, then she took a step back, quickly deked to the side, got behind Maureen and gave Kathleen a vicious punch on the fatty part of her upper arm. Kathleen cried out in pain.
“What did I tell you about getting your mouth going? Did anybody ask you to get your big stupid mouth going?” the Sarge said.
Kathleen started to answer but instead rubbed her arm where it had been punched. The Sarge threw Maureen a triumphant look over her shoulder and went to stand beside Raymond and Maureen’s father, both of whom shifted uncomfortably, wanting to get away but apparently lacking the guts to make a decisive move.
“Well, I wouldn’t come back here to this hellhole anyway no matter what,” Maureen said.
“Oh yes, you’re all talk now, but you’ll be down on your knees begging to come back to this ‘hellhole.’ But I’ll tell you right now: you won’t be getting in, Miss High and Mighty. You think you’re so much better than everybody else, looking down your nose at everyone, and you’re nothing more now than a common slut. Knocked up, beat up, fucked up altogether.”
“Edna, for the love of God, you don’t have to talk to the girl like that.”
The Sarge turned on Maureen’s father. “And whose fault do you think it is that she’s going around Miss Snooty Snoot with her nose so high up in the air it’s a wonder she can breathe at all? Whose fault is it? Yours, that’s whose fault it is.”
“Now, Edna, you don’t mean that. You’re just sorry she’s going.”
“Sorry she’s going? When I see the back of that little cocksucker, I never want to see the front of her again. She’s dead to me.”
That last remark pretty well put a stop to all conversation in the front room. Maureen was struck dumb. Even Kathleen had nothing to say. Maureen managed to push past Kathleen and the Sarge, Raymond and her father and sail out through the front door. Because Maureen wasn’t paying attention, she missed the second step down from the storm door and fell smack on her arse. She whipped her head round to see if any of them had seen her, but thanks be to God, they hadn’t. She picked herself up, dusted herself off . . . and started all over again. The song kept going through Maureen’s head all the way up Princess Street, faster and faster, picking up speed, over and over and over in her mind. It was like what had just happened in the front room had been too much even for Maureen’s relentless mind, and it had just given up and put on a song loop.
Someone touched her shoulder. Maureen screamed and turned around. It was her father.
“I only got a minute, Reenie, ’cause herself will have my hide if she catches me, but you know that’s your home back there and it’ll always be your home, no matter what.”
Maureen exploded. “Oh, what bullshit, Dad! The only person whose home that is, is the Sarge’s. Look, I gotta go.”
“Wait. I know your mother is . . . well she’s a hard bit of business.”
Maureen snorted.
“But she loves you, Maureen.”
“Yea, right.”
“She does.”
“Yea, well she got a queer way of showing it.”
“That’s just her way, Reenie. It comes out like she’s mad all the time, but really she’s scared. She’s afraid all the time, and that’s how her scared comes out. See, she wants so much for you, Maureen, for all of ye, but . . .” Maureen’s father broke off. “Oh, what’s the use of talking? Shure talking never did no good anyhow.”
“Right, and I don’t even know what you’re talking about anyway, Dad.”
He put his arms around Maureen, pulled her into him and just held on to her. Maureen had never felt so awkward in her whole life. Her father had never, as far as Maureen could remember, put his arms around her, and it was so . . . embarrassing. She stood there for what seemed like hours but was only a couple of seconds. She didn’t want to offend the old man, but she wanted to get away from him. She tried to gently pull away, but her dad just kept holding on to her. Finally, she said, “Dad, I gotta go.”
The old man said, “It’s all right, Reenie. It’s okay, everything is going to be all right,” and he just kept holding on to her and patting her on the back.
Some tiny thing inside of Maureen just let go—it snapped, because it felt like an elastic that had been stretched to its limit had just broken. With that, Maureen put her head down on her father’s wide, bony shoulder.
She didn’t know how long they stood there like that on the corner of Princess and New Gower Street, but when he finally let her go, she felt her legs give way, and she was afraid that some really necessary part of herself might have let go. If that was true, how was she going to get through everything now? She looked at her old man and said, “Daddy,” and just saying the word made her feel even more exposed and helpless.
“It’s all right, Maureen. You’re all right, my darling. Shure you’re as strong as an ox, just like your mother.” Maureen started to protest, but he went on. “Yes, you’re just like the Sarge: determined. Go through a brick wall to get what you wants, don’t let nothing stop you.”
Jesus, Maureen thought, why are we out here in the middle of the street having the only talk we’ve ever had?
“Dad, I’m not the one bit like her,” Maureen said to her father.
“Oh yes, and that’s what you are, my love, just like your mother, afraid of everything, afraid of being afraid. Afraid you’ve got to control everything and if you don’t control everything, it will all fall abroad. And afraid ’cause you know deep down that you’re not up to the job of controlling anything, but you’re too afraid to let it go. You got no faith, my love, and very little hope, and what charity you got is way too thin on the ground.”
Maureen wanted to cry out against this pronouncement. Her own father was accusing her of not having even one of the three virtues. Of course, I have charity, but who would have faith? Faith in what? And hope? What’s the point of hope? When she was little, she had hoped things would be different, but she had given up on that.
“Look at me, Reenie. You already got everything you need. You got it all already in here.” He tapped her on the forehead. “And in here.” He tapped her on the heart. “It’s all in there waiting for ya. You just gotta start using it. Oh yes, it’s all gonna be all right in the end. Oh, lots of times your life’s tough and nasty and dirty but still all right for all that. Your Nan used to say, shure it’s always all right in the end, and if it’s not all right, then it’s not the end yet.”
“But sure, you always said Nanny died cursing Poppy and screaming out in her death agony.”
“Yes, and then it was over. And when she was gone, her face had a look of peace and she looked thirty years younger, and it was all right then because it was the end. What’s coming is coming, Maureen, my love. We didn’t cause it mostly, and we mostly can’t cure it or control it, so—”
“Dad, why didn’t you ever pick up for us with Mom when she was going at us?” Maureen had been wanting to say that for a long time.
Her father looked at her for a moment, sighed and said, “Well, Maureen, sure that’d only make her worse if she thought we were all in it together against her.”
“Against her? But sure, Dad, we’re her youngsters.”
“But when you’ve been steeping and stoopin’ up to your eyeballs afraid of everything, my Jesus, sure, the people you love, like your youngsters, they’re like the Viet Cong, Maureen my dear. They sneak up on ya when you least expect it and wipe you out completely.”
“Are you drinking, Dad?”
“Oh, I had a couple of beer at the Ritz Tavern on my way home from the wharf. Only old bellywash, beer is.”
“Oh.”
“Overtime cheque, Maureen. The old woman didn’t know I had it.” He took off his cap, the old-timey St. John’s tweed cap he always wore, and took sixty dollars out of the inside hat band. “And what the old woman doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Here now, you take this, it’s all I got, but at least it will be some help to you up in Montreal. And when you find the baby, by that time, she’ll be over it and you can come back home.”
“She might be over it, Dad, but I’m not. I’m never going to be over it.”
“Oh, Maureen my love, never is a long, long, long time.”
“Good then, because even after a long, long, long time, I’m not going to be over it.”
“Like I said, my lover, you’re the face and eyes and hard-bitten heart of your mother.”
“I’m going.”
Maureen had to look away from her father then, because she saw in his eyes, for the first time, how he felt knowing that his youngest daughter had been treated like Maureen had been treated, how heartbroken he was by all the shit Maureen was in, and how painfully he wanted so much more for her, but how helpless he was to change any of it.
He had always just been the old man, silent until he had a few drinks in and then you couldn’t shut him up. Once, Maureen’s mother hit him on the side of the head with an iron frying pan. He went down but he did not shut up, not even then, flat out on the floor. He was still “rounding the Cape of Good Hope” and talking about the captain who did not give them their “one tot per day per man” that they were entitled to in the British Navy. There was a picture of Maureen’s father, an old, old picture of when he was overseas in the Merchant Navy. He was heart-stoppingly handsome in that picture; he looked like a matinee idol. But now here he was, in his green work shirt and pants, his working man’s tweed cap and his plaid slippers, a thin man on the verge of getting old, trying to do the best he could for a daughter who fucked up so much it didn’t even seem like fuckups anymore, it just seemed like normal. Tears came to Maureen’s eyes as she looked at her father, and he put his arms around her and pulled her into him again.
“Yes, my dear Maureen,” he said, patting her on the back, “it’s all going to be all right in the end, you watch and see.”
Maureen pulled away from him and took off up New Gower, stumbling, blind from her tears, and she didn’t even turn around and look back at him as much as she really wanted to, because to do that would seem too phony, too much like pretending, like she was in some shitty movie or something.