Crying for the Moon, page 24
“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.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
WHEN MAUREEN GOT BACK TO GEORGE’S APARTMENT, Fox Albert was there.
“He said he had to give you something, so I let him in,” George said apologetically.
“It’s okay. What do you want now, Fox?” Maureen said.
“I got your ticket like we promised.” He handed her an airline ticket and then tried to give her five hundred bucks, but Maureen wouldn’t take the money.
“Why are you trying to give me money, Fox?” she said suspiciously. “What am I supposed to do for that money?”
“Nothing.” Fox looked like he was about to say more, but then he looked at George standing next to Maureen and asked, “Maureen, is there somewhere we can speak privately?”
“Whatever you wanna say to me, you can say in front of George. He’s my friend,” she said, realizing it was the truth.
Fox looked uncomfortable. “The five hundred bucks is for the baby,” he said.
Maureen didn’t know what to say.
“Well, you know,” Fox said, and nodded his head, just once, with intent.
Maureen was still not getting it.
“The baby. The baby? You and me—Montreal? Oh Maureen, even you cannot possibly be this stunned. The baby. Your baby could be . . . you know . . . my baby.”
A tiny scream erupted from Maureen’s mouth as she looked at Fox’s flaming red hair and saw that dream again, of that little tuft of red hair all wrapped up in bunting being carried out of the delivery room in the nurse’s arms.
George grabbed Fox by the arm and spun him away from Maureen. “Hey, bud, don’t you think it’s time for you to bounce?”
Maureen was grateful for the interruption.
Fox took a threatening step toward George and said, “I’m talking to Maureen, and I don’t think it’s any of your business.”
“Yea,” said George, “but it turns out you’re gumming up my day, bud, ’cause you’re not in some hash house now; you’re in my joint. And I’m this close to throwing an ing-bing and getting the bulls on the blower. ’Cause ever since this whole jam started, I got the coppers on standby.”
Fox shook his head in confusion and turned on his heel. As he left, he pushed the five hundred dollars into George’s hands and said, “What is it with you two? Neither one of you are making any sense. Make her take this with her to Montreal.”
When they heard the apartment door close behind Fox, George put his arm around Maureen and said, “What was all that about?”
Maureen tried to say, “Nothing,” but she was voiceless. What was there to say? The baby was hers, nobody else’s, and that was that. Silently, she reached out and took the five hundred dollars from George, grabbed her coat and walked decisively out the door. She didn’t even turn around when George called out after her, “Maureen, where are you going? Maureen? Maureen!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
HELLO, MAUREEN. WHAT ARE YOU DOING OVER HERE? Slumming, are ya?”
Sam Fleming slouched against the door of her basement apartment in building 4A at Hillview Terrace apartments. The brave, saucy face Maureen had been wearing since the visit from the cops that morning melted and disappeared as soon as it was confronted by Sam’s obvious hostility. Something about Maureen had always gotten right up on Sam’s last nerve. Dominic Lewis, Sam’s boyfriend, appeared behind her.
“Come in, come in, Maureen my love. Sam, what are you doing keeping sweet Maureen out in the hall?”
Dominic, the few times Maureen had met him, was always overly friendly and even flirty with her. She wished he wasn’t. She could see, once again, it was making Sam mad making her dislike Maureen even more than she already did.
“Let me take your jacket, my love,” Dominic was saying as he had his hands on Maureen’s shoulders, acting way too familiar.
“Is Dicey here?” Maureen said, pulling away from Dominic’s clutches.
“Yea—that’s for me to know and you to find out,” Sam said belligerently.
“Oh, Sam, I just want to see her,” Maureen said.
“Well, don’t start sooking, Maureen. Lighten up, girl. What’s wrong with ya? I’m only giving you a hard time.” Sam laughed at Maureen’s discomfort.
The saucy Maureen decided it was time to take over, and she looked straight at Sam and said, “Well, I guess that’s what’s wrong with me. You’re giving me a hard time and I don’t like it and I got no time for it. Is Dicey here?”
“DICE,” Sam bawled out, her eyes still locked with Maureen’s.
Dicey appeared, ducking through the door into the low-ceilinged living room. It was dark in there, even though it was only early afternoon, and there was a musty smell in the apartment. The whole place made Maureen want to get out of there as soon as she could.
“Hey, Dice.”
“Hey, Maureen.”
“Whaddya at?”
Dicey just looked at her with a face that was possibly the saddest face Maureen had ever seen.
