When Maria arrived back at the house, pushing her way tiredly up the concrete path towards the front door, she noticed that it was slightly ajar. George was home, she thought happily, dragging her groceries into the hall and laying them down carefully on the floor.
But all was not what it seemed. George came thundering down the stairs, his face red and furious, eyes blazing. At a glance she also noticed that downstairs was wrecked, the television gone.
‘What is it?’ she shrieked.
‘Oh Ma, Ma, the money’s gone!’ he shouted in agitation.
Maria screamed and threw her arms up in the air and ran outside in a panic. Just then, the elderly neighbour was making his way past her gate again, and spotting a drama in the making, decided to come in. At the same time, two women from across the way came running.
‘I couldn’t help it Ma. I couldn’t help it. They must have been followin me. I didn’t notice till one of them was holdin a blade to me throat!’
Maria ran upstairs and lifted the overturned doll. She stood for a moment, examining it all over, holding it by the head, and letting the long, wide skirt dangle in the air. She ran down again into the hall, where George, the elderly man and the two women clustered anxiously. Then, catching the doll by the feet she raised it above her head and brought it down on George’s back, in blow after blow, delivered with venom, and the doll smashed on his head, which got another cut, so that blood flowed, over George’s face and hands, over his white school shirt and even dripping down onto the hall floor. It was as if her whole life was unravelling like a huge sweater in which there had been one tiny tear. She saw it clearly, the yarn of her life, her sweating daily effort which was all poured into her dreams of George’s future, unravelling and falling to a heap of nothingness.
‘You stupid, stupid blockhead!’ she screamed between blows. ‘How could you not have seen them? How often have I told you to keep the front door locked as soon as you come home? How many times, eh? You must’ve known they were on your heels. It wouldn’t be the first time some of the lads from round here turned on you!’
She turned to the old man. ‘Shouldn’t he have been more careful than to let those yobbos run him down and into the place?’
‘Well, I suppose you can’t be careful enough these days,’ said the old man uncertainly, his eye on the broken doll in Maria’s hand.
‘There you are!’ Maria said. She flung the doll on the floor. ‘You saw the doll on the landing window, knowing what lay beneath,’ she raged at George, ‘but you made no attempt to divert their attention! Never crossed your mind to phone the cops! Right? Right?’ she screeched, twisting the lobe of his bloodied ear.
‘Ma! No, no Ma! Sure what could I do? They knocked me around the place and began waving knives and hammers in me face!’ George’s lip trembled.
‘You could’ve texted someone!’
‘Ma, are you mad or what? They’d have killed me if I’d taken out the mobile.’
Christ’s sakes Ma, they’d have killed me!’
‘I mean, did you do it on purpose, like? Did you want to avoid going to college? Is that what it’s all about? Sudden laziness just when success is yours? You’ve got an offer in one of those big-smoke English universities, right? The kind of offer nobody around here gets in a million years?’
George nodded, his face reddening. ‘Yeah, I got a place. Two places, in fact,’ he said in a dull voice.
‘Oh.’ Maria dropped the doll, the truth of his words taking the wind from her sails. So he’d done it! He’d done it. He could – if he wanted – now take a scholarship place at Cambridge or Oxford. Instantly, she wanted to calm the whole situation, to be rid of the gaping neighbours who should not be present for such good news. But they were staring at her. The words of the old man still prickled in her mind. The thing about George being a lambkin. Lambkin, how are you! She imagined them now, sniggering behind her back after the display of unfettered rage, and after the crazy logic of her thinking which, in the heat and panic of the moment, had let her down. She, who had always and for so long held their lives together, had slipped. Well, she wouldn’t satisfy them!
She turned to George. ‘So, you’ve got two scholarship places, eh?’
‘Yes Ma,’ he replied, looking at her, his eyes suddenly mistrustful.
‘Scholarships!’, she said sarcastically, at the same time trying to lighten things a bit. ‘I suppose you’ll be too good for the rest of us from now on. I suppose you think you can do what you like, when it’s not so long ago I was wiping your arse, and mopping up after you!’
The neighbours laughed at that, and the tension was broken. But the moment the words were out, her heart burned at the sight of his embarrassed face.
‘Get into the kitchen!’ she commanded with a forced laugh, giving him a shove in the back. ‘Let me see to those cuts while we’re waiting for the cops, scholarship or not!’
Again, the neighbours tittered. She wanted to get him away from them. She hated them suddenly. If they had not been present things might have been different. At least she had the groceries, the special meal she had bought so carefully, spending far more than she would usually for an evening meal. She wanted to get the potatoes sliced and par-boiled, and the cheese grated, and the garlic sliced, so that she could make cheesy potato pie for George. It would comfort him.
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