FRIENDS OF THE fAMILY

Kate Humphreys worried a good deal about the way Sonny Dorgan treated
Gretta. Gretta was a friend of the family and had been since
childhood. John Joe, Kate’s brother, refused to take it seriously, not
because he particularly liked Sonny Dorgan but because he knew Kate
and Gretta exaggerated a good deal. John Joe was a nice fellow, quiet
and well-spoken, but rather disillusioned.

‘Ah, what has she to complain about?’ he asked in a disgusted drawl.

‘Would you strike a girl, John Joe?’ Kate asked with quiet intensity,
folding her arms and looking at him.  Kate was still beautiful in a
quiet way.

‘What would her weight be?’ her brother asked cynically, smiling only
with his eyes. At the same time the question stuck. No man, no matter
how cynical, likes to hear of a girl he has been friendly with since
childhood being knocked about.

Then Ned Campion appeared on the scene. He was a Dublin man,
blue-eyed, fair-haired and hot-tempered, and he became very friendly
with John Joe’s sisters.  John Joe didn’t think much of him. He was
far too much at ease in other people’s homes and with other people’s
sisters, and irony seemed to be lost on him. It put John Joe at a
disadvantage.

‘My goodness,’exclaimed his brother Peter, who seemed to live in a
permanent state of wonderment at life, ‘did you ever see a woman fall
for a man as Kate has for Campion?’

‘Why?’ John Joe asked innocently. ‘You don’t think they’re doing a
line, do you?’

‘Doing a line?’ cried Peter indignantly. ‘My God, where are your eyes,
man? They’re as good as married already.’

But it wasn’t till they had the house at the seaside that summer that
John Joe really began to wonder where his eyes had been. Of course, he
might have known.  Kate was still beautiful and still got offers, but
they were either from good-living young men who had seen her at the
altar on Sunday or middle-aged widowers who thought she would make a
good stepmother. They all proposed in writing and told her they
preferred the old-fashioned sort of girl. Gretta and her daughter
shared the house with them and Campion came to stay, and John Joe,
smiling benignly at the pair of them, wondered at his own stupidity.

‘Tell me, Kate,’ he said one evening when he came in and found Alice
in bed and Kate sitting alone outside the house, ‘where’s Gretta?’

‘Gone for a walk with Ned,’ she replied cheerfully.

‘You don’t think there’s anything between them, do you?’ he asked
keenly.

‘Why, John Joe?’ she asked, letting on to be very interested. ‘You
don’t mean they were doing anything they shouldn’t be doing?’

He realised from her tone that she was stalling, and his tone grew
graver.

‘I hope you have nothing to do with it,’ he said.

‘Ah, what do you take me for?’ she cried impatiently.  ‘Of course, I
know Ned is fond of her, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Nothing more than that?’ he drawled ironically.

‘What do you mean, nothing more?’ she retorted quietly, her hands on
her lap, her long, pale Madonna face with the limp gilt hair twined
about it, raised in the half light. She looked very beautiful just
then.

‘Gretta doesn’t care for him at all, I suppose?’ he added mockingly.

‘I never said she didn’t care for him,’ she said placidly.  ‘It would
be very surprising if she didn’t, considering the sort of husband she
has.’

‘I wasn’t considering that at all, Kate,’ said John Joe with crushing
irony. ‘To tell you the truth, I was under the impression that you’d
forgotten about Sonny entirely.’

‘Well, if you want to know, John Joe,’ replied Kate, her face
transfigured with a sort of inner light, ‘I think as little of Sonny
as he does about me—and that’s not much, God knows!’ she added
lightly.

‘Oh, now, that’s all very well, Kate,’ drawled John Joe with a toss of
his head, ‘but Sonny isn’t exactly a cipher. Peter and myself will
probably have a lot to say to him from time to time, and I’d like to
know where I stand with the man.’

‘Well, as you asked, you may as well know,’ said Kate gravely, leaning
towards him with her hands clasped in her lap. ‘Gretta is thinking of
leaving him.’

‘Of leaving Sonny? ’ John Joe repeated incredulously,

‘You sound very surprised, John Joe,’ she said with quiet
mockery. ‘Doesn’t it strike you as surprising that she didn’t do it
before?’

‘I presume,’ said John Joe, paying her back in her own coin, ‘that
there wasn’t anyone to catch her when she jumped, You’re not going to
pretend she’s not doing it on Campion’s account?’

‘I don’t know, John Joe,’ she said, and for the first time there was a
trace of doubt in her voice. ‘I fancy Gretta is thinking of going to
live in Dublin when he goes back.’

‘Going to live in Dublin?’ he repeated in the same incredulous tone,
and then grew red with anger at her pious half-truths. ‘You mean she’s
going to live with him?’

‘But what else can the child do, John Joe?’ Kate asked unhappily,
leaning still further towards him.

‘I don’t know,’ replied John Joe caustically. ‘What do people in your
church usually do?’ (John Joe’s disillusionment also extended to
religion.)

‘Oh,’ she cried miserably, ‘I know it’s awful, and it’s wrong, but
what can the girl do? Can’t you be a bit human? Her future happiness
depends on it. I told her she was crazy ever to marry that man.’

‘Are you sure,’ John Joe asked cruelly, ‘that she’s waiting till she
gets to Dublin?’

‘Oh, how can you ask that?’ Kate replied in a hurt cone.‘You know her
as well as I do.’

‘So I thought,’ he said ironically. ‘Wasn’t she supposed to be making
Novenas for my conversion or something?’

‘Well, indeed,’ said Kate with a wan smile, ‘if you’ll excuse my
saying so, they seem to be having some effect.’


2

At the same time it was disturbing in a girl like that, a friend of
the family. He blamed Kate a lot for encouraging Gretta in what, after
all, was mere foolishness.  He knew what would happen if she did as
she proposed.  She would have the hell of a time for a fortnight, and
then go off to confess it to the priest, and the priest would refuse
her absolution and tell her she must go back to her husband. And, of
course, her husband wouldn’t have her back.

It was like John Joe’s luck to run into Sonny the day he returned from
holidays. Sonny’s fat, good-natured face lit up at once. He was a born
charmer; nuns in particular were dotty about him. John Joe didn’t
really like him though he was amused by him. Sonny, he felt, believed
in far too many things to be wholesome.  And he knew Sonny didn’t like
him, though he wouldn’t show it.

‘Oh, hullo, John Joe,’ he said with a smile. ‘You’re looking very
brown. Were you on holidays?’

‘Will you have a drink?’ said John Joe, to cut short the languorous
waltz of gab he knew would follow.

‘Begor, I never refused one yet,’ said Sonny, getting brighter each
moment. ‘Sonny by name, sunny by nature’ as he described himself,
‘Sure, I forgot,’ he added, with a plausible imitation of a man with a
short memory. ‘You were in Bunroo with the family. Gretta was telling
me. Ye had a great time, I believe?’

‘Ah, not bad,’ said John Joe without enthusiasm, and he ordered the
drinks in his quiet, colourless way.

‘Cripes,’ said Sonny, screwing himself on to a stool and loosening the
top button of his trousers, ‘this beer has a terrible effect on the
masculine waist-line. I don’t know what Gretta and yourself see in
that blooming place. It’s too quiet for my taste. Ye had Ned Campion
there as well?’

‘We had,’ said John Joe quietly, passing across the drink.

‘He was up at the house a couple of times with Gretta, but I never had
much chat with him,’ said Sonny casually.  He seems to be a very smart
chap, by all accounts.’

‘So I believe,’ replied John Joe cautiously. It was a most
embarrassing position. In an inquisitive community it was too much to
suppose that Sonny didn’t know all about it and didn’t assume that
himself and Peter were parties to it. At the same time John Joe had no
skill in the fencing and probing and shilly-shally that Sonny enjoyed
so much. ‘Of course,’ he added, ‘I never had much to say to him, but
himself and Kate are very thick.’

‘And Gretta the same,’ said Sonny slyly. ‘Begor, John Joe,’ he added
with a deliberately common drawl, ‘he seems to be the hell of a lady’s
man, what? Yourself and myself wouldn’t have much chance with a fellow
like that around.’

‘Ah, to tell you the truth, Sonny,’ said John Joe, seeing the way he
was being pumped, ‘I think he’s a decent chap.’

‘Oh, man alive,’ said Sonny eagerly, ‘I’m not saying a word against
him. ’Tisn’t because he goes round with Gretta. That wouldn’t worry me
at all.’ And then the same rogue’s laugh as he closed one eye. ‘And
anyone that knocked round with Kate would have to be all right,’ he
added with a conspiratorial air. ‘That’s the girl that would soon
stiffen him if he wasn’t. Gor, John Joe,’ he added laughingly, ‘hasn’t
she a terrible eye?  ’Tis a mercy to God she’s not a man or she’d be
in the Redemptorists.’

Oh, a most embarrassing man to talk to! But John Joe had a stubborn
Puritanical streak in him which only grew more pronounced whenever he
was with people like Sonny. He put his hands in his trousers pockets,
jangled the coins and looked at Sonny.

‘The trouble with Gretta is that she hasn’t friends enough,’ he said
quietly.

‘That’s the truest word you ever spoke, John Joe,’ said Sonny
approvingly. ‘It’s the very thing I’m always telling her myself. She
hasn’t friends enough. You should tell her that. Of course, you know
she worships the ground you walk on,’ he added winningly.

‘I do not,’ said John Joe dryly, resenting Sonny’s blatant
flattery. ‘Anyway, that’s not what I mean,’ he added with deepening
gravity. ‘I know Gretta since we were kids, and I think I understand
her. She’s the biggest-hearted girl in the world, but she likes to be
made a lot of.... Mind you,’ he added deprecatingly, ‘I’m not
interfering between ye.’

‘You’re not, of course,’ said Sonny, all the light gone from his face.

‘I never discussed you with Gretta, good, bad or indifferent,’ added
John Joe, ‘but I can’t help noticing when things aren’t going right.’

‘Oh, you put your finger on it, John Joe,’ said Sonny in a low voice,
taking a swig to steady him up. ‘They’re not going right, I know it
well. And they’re not going right this many a long day.’

‘And I’m telling you the reason,’ said John Joe solemnly. ‘I know it’s
not your fault,’ he added hastily, to take the harm out of it, ‘but a
lot of women are like that. They feel you’re slighting them if you’re
not dancing attendance on them, night, noon and morning.’

‘They do,’ agreed Sonny disconsolately. ‘Gretta is the same. And of
course, I’m not much in the domesticated line. I might meet a couple
of the lads, just as I met you, and we might be here the rest of the
night.  There’s not a bit of harm in it, you know,’ he added eagerly,
‘but when I go home, I’m the worst in the world.’

‘Ah, I’m in the same boat,’ said John Joe, though he wasn’t, and he
knew Sonny knew he wasn’t; it was just that the man had his
pride. ‘But the sort Campion is, he has only to be in a room with a
woman for her to start telling him all her troubles as if she knew him
all her life. There’s no harm in that either,’ he added charitably,
‘but you know what it leads to.’

‘I do, I do,’ said Sonny, biting his lip. ‘And I’m very grateful to
you for warning me, John Joe. Because the fact is, for all my little
vagaries, I’m genuinely devoted to Gretta. Would you believe that,
John Joe?’

‘I would,’ said John Joe, and he meant it. He could see that in the
odd moments which Sonny devoted to worry, he had worried; men like
Sonny always do when they find the woman they have lived with for
years hates the living sight of them.

‘As true as God I am,’ said Sonny, shaking his head.  ‘Genuinely and
sincerely devoted to her. I’d hate to hurt that girl’s feelings.’


3

At least John Joe’s conscience was clear. Whatever happened, he had
done his best, and for a couple of weeks he was quite satisfied that
things were going better with the Dorgans. He knew that because Gretta
didn’t come to the house so much, and Kate was rather subdued.  Then
he came home late one night and found Gretta and Kate with their feet
over the fender. Gretta looked up at him and giggled.

‘Hullo, Gretta,’ he said, with as much surprise as he ever permitted
himself to show, ‘Isn’t it late you’re out?’

‘Why, John Joe?’ she asked with a start, letting on to be upset.‘Don’t
you want to see me home?’

‘Oh, well,’ he said in what he intended to be the same bantering tone,
‘that depends on who’s at home.’

‘Only Auntie, John Joe,’ she replied eagerly. ‘And she’s deafer than
ever.’

‘Oh,’ said John Joe with a bland but watchful smile, taking a pipe
from the mantelpiece and looking into the bowl, ‘is that the way with
you?’

‘I know,’ she said between laughing and smiling.  ‘I’m a bad girl’

‘It’s rather hard lines on Sonny, isn’t it?’ said John Joe
non-committally, tapping out his pipe on the grate.

‘It’s awful,’ she said gravely, ‘but today I knew I couldn’t stand it
another week without going mad.’

‘I wonder you stuck it so long,’ said Kate, with a touch of
complacency which annoyed John Joe. He detached the bowl from the stem
and blew through it. Then he sat back in his chair and fumbled for his
tobacco.

‘Who was it was telling me that Sonny was supposed to be quite a
reformed character?’ he asked innocently.

‘Is he?’ asked Gretta with interest, as though that hadn’t struck her
before. ‘I suppose in a way he is.’  ‘Then her grey eyes twinkled
wickedly. ‘Unfortunately,’ she added demurely, ‘his ideas of reform
are rather limited.’

So Gretta and her daughter came back to live with old Miss Curtin, and
except that Campion was always knocking round, it would have been
quite like old times with Gretta and Kate going shopping together and
singing Gilbert and Sullivan in the evenings. As Gretta didn’t want
her aunt to know anything about Campion, he called for her at the
Humphreys, and John Joe purposely stayed out late to avoid meeting him
at supper when he came home. He could hardly have trusted himself to
be polite. It was bad enough Campion’s making himself at home with
other fellows’ sisters, but when it came to wives John Joe drew the
line. It was very disturbing, and it wasn’t only himself. What could
you make of a quiet, religious girl like Kate lending herself to such
a business?

It didn’t last long. Kate grew thoughtful again, and Campion was a
bundle of nerves. He snapped and snarled at everybody, and everything
he did seemed to John Joe too demonstrative altogether. One night as
John Joe was coming home late, Campion went past him hastily with his
head down, hands behind his back, his throat wrapped in a muffler. It
wasn’t that he didn’t see John Joe, for John Joe, startled, called
after him in his usual amiable way, ‘Oh, good night, Ned,’ and Campion
muttered ‘Good night’ without looking back. By God, as John Joe said
to himself, one would think it was Campion’s house.

‘What’s wrong with that fellow?’ he asked dryly as he entered the
kitchen.

‘Who?’ asked Kate, looking up from her stool before the fire. ‘Oh,
poor Ned!’

‘Poor Ned?’ echoed John Joe resentfully. ‘What’s poor about him?’

‘He’s very worried,’ said Kate, tossing the hair from her forehead.

‘Go on!’ said John Joe ironically. ‘I thought he was supposed to be
getting all he wanted in this life.’

‘He didn’t get it yet,’ said Kate with a sigh.

‘But what’s the trouble?’ John Joe asked in surprise.

‘I suppose you might as well hear it now as any other time,’ said
Kate. ‘Gretta is having a baby.’

‘Gretta?’ he echoed in a dumbfounded voice, and then sank on to a
chair beside her.

‘You won’t mention it to Peter?’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’ he asked suspiciously, and then frowned as a fresh
doubt struck him. ‘You don’t mean it’s Campion’s?’ he said, aghast.

‘Did he look as if it was?’ she asked impatiently.  ‘Really, John Joe,
it’s time you had a bit of sense. I only wish to God it was his.’

John Joe looked at her in fresh astonishment, and then grew very red.

‘What’s come over you?’ he asked angrily. ‘Or are you losing your
senses too?’

‘Oh, it’s easy for you to lay down the law, John Joe,’ she cried, as
angry as himself. ‘I don’t know how you can sit there, smug and
contented, settling other people’s lives for them.’

‘I’m settling other people’s lives?’ repeated John Joe in
bewilderment. ‘I’m settling them. That’s pretty good. You bring this
bloody man to the house and throw him at Gretta’s head; you have the
pair of them down at the seaside together, and tell Gretta what a
shocking life her husband is leading her; you break up the woman’s
home, and then you tell me that I settle people’s lives for them.’

‘I didn’t, John Joe, I didn’t,’ she said shrilly, her long face
pinched with anxiety. ‘You know that before ever Ned came on the
scene, Gretta was sick to death of Sonny; you know that Ned and
herself are mad out about one another; and—I suppose it’s wrong,’ she
interjected pleadingly, ‘and I suppose I ought to regret it, but I
can’t help it, John Joe. Gretta is my oldest friend, and I want her to
have some happiness in life.  I tell you I’d sooner a thousand,
thousand times that it was Ned’s child.’

She was standing now, looking down at him, slight and pale, with
clenched fists. He looked at her half in pity, half in contempt.

‘And what does Gretta herself think?’ he asked coldly.

‘The poor child doesn’t know what to think. It’s like the end of
everything for her.’

‘I suppose,’ asked John Joe ironically, ‘she feels it’s the direct
intervention of Providence.’

‘Ah,’ said Kate, folding her arms and looking fixedly into the fire,
‘that’s only old doosha-dawsha.’

‘I’m glad you’re prepared to admit that much at least,’ he said
complacently, digging his hands into his trousers pockets as he got a
little of his own back for all the prayers which had been said for
him. At the same time he saw that he had guessed right. Gretta’s
conscience had begun to trouble her even sooner than he had
expected. ‘And so Ned is getting the push?’

‘I wouldn’t say he’s getting the push,’ said Kate unhappily. ‘It’s
only that she feels she’d be too much of a burden on him.’

‘She doesn’t know the half of it,’ said John Joe feelingly. ‘And what
does he think?’

‘He thinks just what I think,’ said Kate firmly, ‘that it doesn’t
alter the situation one way or another.’

‘That’s the best thing I’ve heard about him so far,’ said John Joe
grudgingly, admitting that Campion’s attitude was what his own would
have been in the circumstances. ‘Still,’ he said regretfully, ‘Gretta
is right.’

‘How is she right?’ Kate asked.

‘Ah, for goodness’ sake have sense, girl,’ drawled John Joe, almost
out of patience with her. ‘At the best of times it would have been
hard enough, but with two children of Sonny’s and one of them not even
born yet!  The whole thing is silly.’

‘Oh,’ said Kate with quiet intensity, ‘I don’t mind what you
say. Anything in the world is better than going back to live with a
man you don’t care about.’

John Joe nearly exploded on her with a denunciation of love and all
its absurdities, but when he looked at that pure, spiritual, unhappy
face of hers, he held his peace.  He even thought for a moment that
Peter might have been right and that she was a bit in love with Ned
herself.  It would be like her to sacrifice the man she loved for the
sake of a friend.

And then, lying in bed with a book on his knees, he suddenly saw it
all clearly and began to chuckle to himself.  He saw that it was
entirely Kate’s doing that the thing had gone so far, and his that it
hadn’t gone any further.  ‘Unfortunately,’ Gretta had said in her sly
way, Sonny’s ideas of reform are rather limited.’ And Sonny’s ideas of
reform, however limited they might be, were entirely of John Joe’s
manufacture. He could hardly help laughing at the comedy of it. Kate
who was a saint, or not far short of one, was deliberately trying to
break up Gretta’s marriage, while he, who didn’t believe in anything,
was trying to knock it together as fast as she dismembered it. ‘Oh,
very well,’ he thought cheerfully. ‘If that’s what Kate wants, we’ll
see which of us wins.’

Next day he rang up Sonny and arranged to meet him for a drink. The
moment Sonny arrived, John Joe noticed the change in him. He behaved
just the least bit stiffly as became a man whose wife had just left
him, meeting one of her friends.

‘Well,’ drawled John Joe with a smile, when they were sitting at the
table with their drinks, ‘I believe we’ll soon be congratulating you
on an increase in the family.’

‘Oh, is that so, John Joe?’ said Sonny without giving anything away.

‘So I believe anyway,’ said John Joe with a grin.

‘Oh, of course,’ said Sonny with a toss of his head, ‘I’d be the last
to know.’

‘Ah,’ said John Joe with his innocent smile, ‘you ought to know by
this time what women in that condition are like.’

‘Well, to tell you the God’s truth, John Joe,’ said Sonny, raising his
brows with affected candour, ‘I’m easy, As a matter of fact,’ he added
off-handedly, ‘’twas only this morning I was seeing Stanton, the
auctioneer, about getting a tenant for the house.’

‘Oh,’ said John Joe mildly, ‘that’s taking things to the fair, isn’t
it?’ Not because he believed for an instant that Sonny was trying to
let the house, but as a warning against any of these dramatic gestures
which so often lead to trouble.

‘Ah, I don’t know, John Joe,’ said Sonny, wrinkling his brows, ‘I’m
very disappointed in Gretta. Very disappointed!’

‘Go on!’ said John Joe politely, without being able to conceal a
smile. ‘What disappointed you?’

‘Well, John Joe,’ said Sonny, shaking his head, ‘you know I’m afraid
Gretta is very deceitful.’

‘You’re not serious, Sonny?’ purred John Joe.  (Really, he thought,
there was no limit to the absurdities of married couples, and the men
had as little sense as the women.) ‘When did you begin to notice
that?’

‘Oh, begor now, John Joe,’ said Sonny, looking away and raising a
plump hand for order, ‘that’s no joking matter at all. And don’t tell
me you didn’t notice it yourself,’ he added, turning again and
pointing an accusing finger at John Joe. ‘I had occasion to speak to
her about it before we were married at all. Gretta is deceitful, John
Joe.’

‘Do you know, Sonny, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,’ drawled John Joe,
feeling the least bit irritated. It was pretty thick of Sonny, who to
John Joe’s knowledge was a leader of a local Catholic secret society.

‘Well,’ said Sonny reasonably, pulling at the knees of his trousers,
‘just consider the present situation. As a result of a certain
discussion with yourself some time ago, I made it up with Gretta—in
every sense,’ he added warningly.

‘So it seems,’ said John Joe with good-natured irony,

‘Now,’ went on Sonny, cocking his head, ‘I made all the concessions,
but that’s neither here not there.  I’m not claiming any credit for
it. Maybe I was to blame in the beginning. I’m not trying to defend
myself, mind you,’ he said, leaning back and shaking his head
earnestly.  ‘I’m not trying to defend myself at all, But then, what
happens? I come home one night and find Gretta and the kid gone. No
disagreement, no explanation, nothing at all. Now, wouldn’t you think,
if I’d done anything out of the way, that Gretta would come and tell
me?’

‘That would depend on how you behaved the last time she did it,’
retorted John Joe dryly, remembering a certain question of Kate’s
about whether or not he would strike a woman.

‘Oh, no, John Joe,’ said Sonny triumphantly, fumbling for coins in his
trousers pocket, ‘that’s want of character.  I understand Gretta as
well as you, John Joe, and maybe a bit better. Mind you, I had hopes
of her. I thought when she was living with me for a few years that I’d
be able to draw her out of that moral cowardice and get her to be
truthful and straightforward. Up to a point I succeeded, but
now’—Sonny made a large despairing gesture—‘I’m afraid she’s back
where she started, John Joe. I can see no hope for her.’

‘My goodness,’ said John Joe caustically, as with every moment his
dislike for Sonny gathered head, ‘that’s a very serious view to take.’

‘But what other view can I take?’ asked Sonny challengingly. ‘I hear
from you that she’s going to have another child. Is that truthful? Is
that straightforward?  Now, be reasonable, John Joe. If Gretta feels
she made a mistake, and wants to come back, don’t you think it’s up to
her to come and say so herself?’

John Joe grew very red. It was clear now that Sonny thought he was
coming on Gretta’s account, and looking on that as a sign of weakness,
was doing his best to drive a hard bargain. For the first time John
Joe perceived that there might be a lot to be said for Campion.

‘That would be a very foolish idea to get into your head, Sonny,’ he
said with murderous quietness.

‘Ah, but I’m only assuming, John Joe,’ said Sonny hastily.

‘Oh, no, Sonny,’ said John Joe, rising, ‘you’re doing nothing of the
sort. You imagine that Gretta asked me to come and see you. You never
made a bigger mistake in your life.’

He turned on his heel, but Sonny made a grab for him.

‘You’re not going, John Joe?’

‘I am,’ said John Joe firmly. ‘For the future you can manage your own
business.’

‘You’re not, man, you’re not,’ said Sonny with coarse
playfulness. ‘Not till I get a drink for you. I took your advice the
last time, didn’t I?’ he whispered intensely, thrusting his fat face
into John Joe’s.

‘More fool I was to offer it,’ said John Joe bitterly.

‘Now John Joe,’ said Sonny warningly, raising a fat finger at him,
‘you’re wronging me. You’re wronging me and you know you’re wronging
me,’ he added reproachfully, and John Joe was surprised to see tears
in his eyes.‘Can’t you see my position, John Joe?’

‘All I can see,’ drawled John Joe unsympathetically, ‘is that you have
one last chance of making it up with Gretta, and you haven’t sense
enough to take it.’

‘But what chance is there? ’ asked Sonny emotionally.  ‘It seams she’s
in love with this fellow Campion.’

‘I’m hardly surprised,’ said John Joe.

‘Nor I,’ said Sonny, turning the thrust adroitly. ‘We all have our
little fancies, and there’s no harm in them.  But what can I do with
things as they are?’

‘Listen,’ said John Joe patiently, as though he were explaining a
simple problem to a stupid child, ‘Gretta had her mind made up to
leave you for good. We won’t go into the wrongs and rights of
it. There were probably faults on both sides.’

‘Oh, there were, there were,’ said Sonny, nodding eagerly.

‘By sheer bad luck, she finds after she has left you that she’s having
a kid,’ continued John Joe. ‘Anyone can see the effect that would have
on a woman. Whatever feeling she ever had for you is bound to come on
top.  At the present moment, if I know anything, her mind is like
that,’ he added, holding his hand edgewise in a presentable imitation
of a yacht in a high wind. ‘The least breath would tilt her.’

‘That’s all I want to know, John Joe,’ said Sonny with sudden
decision, reaching for John Joe’s glass. ‘You needn’t say any
more. I’m not a man to let pride stand in his way.’

‘I hope not,’ growled John Joe in a tone which implied that he doubted
it. He was still indignant at the slight which Sonny had inflicted on
him, and if he had happened to run into Campion during the afternoon,
there was no knowing what he might have done or said. But Sonny didn’t
give him a chance. That evening while his elder sister Rosie, Ned
Campion and himself were sitting in the kitchen, Kate came in looking
tired and distraught.

‘You didn’t see any sign of Gretta?’ asked Rosie, who was fat and
jolly.

‘Gretta will probably be late,’ said Kate non-committally.

‘Go on,’ said Rosie inquisitively. ‘What’s keeping her?’

‘You’d hardly believe it,’ replied Kate wearily, sinking into a
chair. ‘Sonny Dorgan.’

‘Oh!’ hissed Campion, clenching his fists and making a face as he
strode from the fire to the back door.

‘And would you believe it,’ added Kate, half in tears and half in
laughter, ‘he kissed my hand.’

‘Oh, you can give her up, Ned,’ said Rosie in a brassy voice. ‘She’ll
go back to him,’

‘To tell you the God’s truth, Rosie,’ replied Campion in a tortured
voice, ‘I wouldn’t mind much what she did so long as it made her
happy,’

‘She will not go back to him, Rosie,’ cried Kate, stamping her foot.

And if she won’t,’ cried Rosie, showing every symptom of hysterics,
‘why the hell didn’t she pitch him out on his nose? And you’re as bad
as any of them, you dirty little turncoat, letting him kiss your
hand.’

Campion put on his hat and coat and left. John Joe was feeling sorry
for him. He had the impression that Campion would probably walk the
country roads all night. Then Rosie went off to a meeting in town, and
Kate and himself were left alone. There was still no sign of
Gretta. Kate rose and walked to the fire and stood with one foot on
the fender, her head bowed and her hands clasped before her. In a way
John Joe realised that she, almost as much as Campion or Gretta, was a
victim of the situation.

‘Cheer up, old girl,’ he said sympathetically. ‘It’s probably the best
thing that could happen for everybody’s sake.’

‘I know you think so, John Joe,’ she said, turning on him with a wan
smile, ‘but I can’t feel like that at all.  If Gretta were to do a
thing like that, I don’t think I could ever, ever be the same to her
again.’


4

But in spite of that, six months later she went with John Joe to visit
Gretta at the nursing home. Gretta was sitting up, looking blooming,
and kissed them both affectionately. She was in the highest of
spirits. Sonny was a bit tight but he was in high spirits too. But
from the moment John Joe saw Kate’s eyes fixed on the little figure in
the cot, he knew there was something wrong.  She grew pale as though
she would faint at any moment.  To cover up her emotion he stood
beside her and rested his hand lightly on her shoulder, and as though
she communicated her emotion to him, he found himself seeing what she
saw. It was no more than a whisper, a gleam, the faintest hint of
resemblance, but it penetrated his knowingness and complacency with a
sense of futility.

‘I declare to my God,’ said Sonny gaily, ‘he’s jealous.’

‘How jealous he is!’ said Gretta mockingly. ‘And all the efforts I
made to attract his attention!’

‘Ssh!’ said Sonny commandingly, and tiptoed to Kate’s side. ‘I think
we’re rather in the way here just at the moment, Kate,’ he whispered
confidentially, while his tiny eyes, full of mischief, were fixed on
John Joe.  ‘I may as well tell you,’ he added to John Joe, ‘she thinks
the sun shines out of you... . Mind you,’ he said, raising a fat palm
conspiratorially, ‘I’m not asking what there was between ye. I’m only
telling you.’

Separation and reconciliation seemed to have very little effect on
Sonny. ‘Sonny by name, sunny by nature.’



Original publication: Reginald Moore’s Modern Reading, 1946-11.
Source: The Common Chord, 1947.
URI: https://archive.org/details/commonchord0000fran/