‘Yes, sir…I mean, no, sir.’
‘What d’you mean, “No, sir”?’ the man demanded. ‘I’ll tell you what, sir. You took my daughter down and now I want to know what you are going to do about it.’
‘Are you sure it was Hopkins?’ The question was directed at Nancy, but it was her father who answered.
‘Oh, it were him, all right. All over her like a rash last summer and into the autumn too, so her friends said. Then he dumped her like, but not before he filled her belly. She wouldn’t tell me straight off. I had to beat her near black and blue before she let on it were him, like.’
‘All right, Mr Dempsey,’ the commanding officer said sharply. He looked at Greg. ‘Do you deny this?’
He couldn’t deny it, nor say before this bully of a man that Nancy had been mad for it, begging him. He’d taken precautions every time till the time he’d gone to tell her it was really and truly over, and had taken nothing with him. ‘Just one last time to remember you by,’ she’d begged, and then stupidly, because he felt sorry for her, he had obliged.
He felt sick to the base of his stomach. Almighty Christ, what was he to do? But he knew what he had to do. There was no other course open to him. ‘I’ll marry her,’ he said. Then, because that sounded churlish and unkind, he turned to Nancy. ‘Don’t worry, Nancy, I’ll not let you down. I’ll marry you.’
‘The chaplain can do the honours,’ the commanding officer said.
‘I must go home first, sir,’ Greg said, ‘to tell my parents.’ But it wasn’t his parents he had to tell most urgently, it was Maria. Maria, that he loved with all his heart and soul and mind, that he had lost for ever. He knew he would be dealing her a terrific blow and he didn’t think he could bear her pain too; his own was making it difficult for him to draw breath.
The commanding officer surmised a lot by the look in young Hopkins’s eyes, for it wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened. ‘When does your leave start?’
‘In two days’ time, sir.’
‘Take it from tonight,’ the officer said. ‘I’ll square it, don’t worry. Tell your parents, then come straight back here. It’s best the matter is done as speedily as possible.’
‘You won’t lose by it, Greg,’ Nancy said. She was imploring him to look at her with eyes of love and not duty, but Greg was dying inside, shrivelling up. ‘I’ll be a good wife to you, Greg,’ she went on in desperation, ‘and our mom says I’m a tidy cook, like.’
Shut your mouth, you sodding stupid bitch! Greg gasped. For a moment he thought he’d spoken the words aloud.
‘You are dismissed, Hopkins,’ the officer said.
Tears were smarting in his eyes as Nancy grabbed his hand. ‘It will be all right, won’t it, Greg?’
He couldn’t speak, not without bawling like a baby. He said nothing, but pulled his hand away and left the room. He went outside the barracks, banged his head against the brick wall and he cried his eyes out.
Despite losing pay, and her anxiety to keep in favour at work, Maria had taken the day off. Greg had told her what time the bus would stop in The Square. He could see her jumping from one foot to the other in excitement as the bus pulled in. He had barely left the vehicle when she launched herself at him, nearly overbalancing him, as he had a case in one hand.
‘Oh, Greg, I’ve missed you and I love you so much.’
Greg just stood and looked at Maria. She cried, ‘Put your arms around me, for God’s sake. It’s what I’ve longed for, for weeks.’
His heart like lead, Greg put his arms around the girl he loved beyond all others. ‘Maria, we must talk.’
‘Of course we must,’ Maria said. ‘Shall we go back?’
‘No, not home, somewhere quiet.’
‘There’s only Daddy. Bella has Mammy till I go back.’
Was there nowhere in this whole God-damned place that they could be alone so that Greg could tell the lovely, wonderful girl that he was casting her aside for another? ‘Maria, I need a private place.’
So did Maria. She wanted to run her fingers through his regulation short hair, to trace the lines of his face with her kisses, and kiss his delicious lips until she was dizzy. And she wanted him to kiss her eyes and her throat in the way that caused her to moan in ecstasy as the yearning excitement mounted in her. Then she wanted to feel his lips on hers, his tongue darting in and out of her mouth, his hands feeling every bit of her.
Suddenly, she knew the place. ‘We’ll go to the boatyard,’ she cried.
‘Is there no one there? Colm…?’
‘Colm has the flu. He hasn’t been there the last two days. He sent word down. There’s even a heater there.’
Greg sighed. ‘That’s the place then.’
‘Do you want to leave your case in the house as we pass?’
‘No,’ Greg said. He wanted to go nowhere and make small talk with anyone till he’d told his girl what he’d come to tell her. ‘No, it’s OK, really.’
They didn’t take the coastal path; the wind was so fierce they’d be in danger of being plucked off it and flung into the lough. Even through the town, the wind gusting around them made conversation difficult, but Greg was glad of it. Maria had linked arms with him and the case dragged from his other hand as they toiled up the slight hill to Greencastle.
The boatyard was, as Maria had said, deserted, and she lifted the large stone beside the door, extracted the key and let them in. Greg was glad to be out of the wind, but the workroom was icy.
‘Wait,’ Maria said, seeming to know her way around the dim room, the light of the day, such as it was, hardly penetrating through the one small window.
Maria lit both a paraffin lamp and a stove, and then she wrapped her arms around Greg. ‘Keep your coat on for a while,’ she advised, ‘till the room warms up a bit. Then,’ she added impishly, ‘we can take off as much as you’d like.’ She clapped her hand to her mouth in horror at the realisation of what she had said.
‘Maria!’
‘Oh, Greg, how dreadful to come out with something like that,’ she cried. ‘You must be shocked, think me brazen. I don’t know what came over me.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Greg cried, putting down his case thankfully against an upended boat. The ground was littered with coils of rope and the room smelt of engine oil.
Maria produced two chairs and passed one over to Greg. ‘Sit down, darling, and tell me what’s on your mind,’ she said. ‘I can tell there’s something.’
Now they were here, in this ideal place, isolated and alone, Greg didn’t know how to start. He’d rehearsed it enough times. He’d travelled through the night, on train and mail boat, more trains and the bus to get here in the least time possible, but while it was one thing to rehearse his story cold, as if the tale was of someone else entirely, it was quite another to sit and look into the eyes of his beloved and tell it.
‘Shall I make some tea?’ Maria said suddenly. ‘There’s always some things kept in the cupboard in the kitchen place and I could boil the kettle on the stove, though I’m not sure if there’s milk?’
Did he want tea? He didn’t know. Would tea help the cold, dead feeling inside him? ‘That would be nice,’ he found himself saying.
So Maria busied herself and found milk that the cold