lost my man because he’ll want no more to do with me after tonight.
But Brendan most decidedly did want to see Maeve again. She had few evenings off, though Brendan never complained about that. He had plenty of mates from the brass foundry where he worked who lived in Aston Cross and drank in the pubs there, and he’d stay there on Maeve’s evenings at work, arriving at the café at about half-past nine. Maeve closed up officially at ten, but if there were no customers she could close earlier and then all her time was devoted to Brendan. She never minded that he was drunk. After all, she reasoned, what else was there for him to do? Nor did she mind the bottles of beer he would bring to wash down the little bit of supper she would always save for him.
‘Let me stay the night, Maeve?’ he’d pleaded time and again on these nights.
Maeve’s answer was always the same: ‘Brendan, I can’t.’
‘Oh, but you can, my darling,’ Brendan said one day almost a fortnight after their first date as he caressed and fondled one of Maeve’s breasts. ‘It would be so good. You’d enjoy it.’
Maeve didn’t doubt it. Already she was allowing Brendan more liberties than she’d ever dreamt of allowing anyone and, finding it so nice, it would have been easy, so easy, to let Brendan do what he wanted. But always her mother’s face would be before her, sorrow-filled, or the disapproving visage of the parish priest, and both images had given her the strength to pull back.
‘Wouldn’t your mother worry if you didn’t go home anyway?’ she asked Brendan one evening when he was again wheedling to spend the night with her.
He gave a bellow of laughter. ‘Maeve, I’m a big boy now. My mother has no say in my life. No one has. And that’s how it should be for you. You shouldn’t worry so much about other people. You should do what feels good to you.’
But despite Brendan’s urging Maeve wouldn’t be moved. Brendan tried harder than he’d ever tried with any other girl, and on Maeve’s rare evenings off he would forgo his pleasures at the pub and take her somewhere special. They went to the cinema twice more and even to the theatre once. The highlight of that visit to the Hippodrome in Corporation Street was to see a young Lancashire lass called Gracie Fields singing wonderful stirring songs that she urged the audience to join in.
Brendan was opening up new horizons for Maeve, and she was grateful to him and said so as they made their way home.
‘How grateful?’ Brendan said. ‘I know a way you could show true gratitude.’
‘Ah, Brendan, if only I could.’
‘You can,’ Brendan said. His desire for Maeve seemed to be growing rather than diminishing. Often he had to seek consolation elsewhere after he’d left Maeve, for the limits she put on his lovemaking fuelled his frustration.
Maeve didn’t know how Brendan felt, though she hoped he truly loved her as she did him, for no one should do the kind of things they were doing to each other, and wanting to do more, unless they loved each other. The natural outcome was marriage and she waited for Brendan to ask her, knowing if he didn’t ask her soon, she’d give way to his urgings and her own body’s needs anyway and let Brendan love her as he wanted to for she’d be unable to help herself. She didn’t tell Brendan this, but he guessed a lot from the little moans and sighs she was unable to suppress.
Brendan wanted to take Maeve down the Bull Ring on a Saturday evening but she never had a Saturday free.
‘It’s hardly fair,’ he said one night as she lay in his arms.
‘It’s our busiest night. Mr Dolamartis would never agree.’
‘Bet he would if I asked him,’ Brendan said. ‘I’ll tell him he’s destroying my love life keeping you behind the counter, or over a hot stove every Saturday. It isn’t as if he doesn’t get his bloody money’s worth out of you. And he’s a right stingy bugger. I’ll have a word with him, don’t you worry.’
And Brendan had a word and Maeve thought she’d remember for ever the first sight of the Bull Ring on that Saturday evening, lit up with gas flares and looking like fairyland. The noise was tremendous – both from the people thronging the place and the vendors shouting out their wares. Brendan caught up Maeve’s hand and they ran like children down the cobbled streets of Jamaica Row.
‘Let go of me!’ she cried, laughing at him. ‘Let go!’
But though Brendan slowed down, he kept hold of her hand as they walked among the stalls, looking at the array of goods on offer. Maeve had discovered the Bull Ring on her first visit to the city centre, but she’d never seen it at night. It seemed a different place, a magical place.
She jiggled a hot potato from hand to hand as she watched a man tied in chains free himself, while others tottered on high stilts among the crowds. A bare-fist boxer was challenging the men for a fight, five pounds to be won if they beat him.
‘Shall I try?’ Brendan asked teasingly, but Maeve held him back.
‘You will not, Brendan,’ she said firmly. ‘I couldn’t bear it.’
Brendan laughed at her. He’d had no intention of offering himself, but liked to see Maeve’s concern.
Maeve didn’t like the poor ragged men selling a variety of things from trays around their necks. ‘Old lags from the last war,’ Brendan told her, but he wouldn’t let Maeve dwell on their poor existence or buy their razor blades or matches. He steered her instead towards the man with the piano accordion, and they joined in with others singing the popular songs.
That evening Maeve had her first taste of whelks when Brendan bought her a dish. She wasn’t sure she really liked them, but thought they were better than the slimy jellied eels that Brendan chose.
Brendan put his arm round Maeve, amused at her delight in everything, and as she smiled up at him he felt as if he’d been hit by a sledgehammer in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t know if it was love or not, he just knew he wanted Maeve more than he’d wanted anything in his life before.
They stayed at the Bull Ring until the Salvation Army band marched in blowing bugles and trumpets, and singing hymns with great gusto. Maeve was amazed how many stood and listened and even joined in some hymns, and when the Salvation Army left, they had tramps and some of the old lags in tow.
‘Where are they taking them?’ she asked Brendan.
‘To the Citadel,’ he replied. ‘They’ll give them thick soup and bread, and try and find some of them a bed for the night.’
Maeve was moved by that. She’d never met people of different religions, or of no religion at all, before she’d come to Birmingham, but she thought those in the Salvation Army must be good, kind people and brave to go about in their strange costumes risking ridicule.
‘Come on,’ Brendan said. ‘The only one in your head should be me, my darling girl, and certainly not those down-and-outs. My throat’s as dry as dust and I want a drink.’
Maeve didn’t very much like the pub to which Brendan took her, but she quite liked the port and lemon he bought her. In fact she liked it so much she drank it down almost at once and Brendan smiled at her.
‘It’s not pop, you know. Treat it with care.’
Maeve remembered
