An Unbreakable Bond

by Mary Wood

  ‘Aye, Issy should’ve advised him better, but you can’t blame Jack. You can’t put a woman’s head on a man, love. They’re not the same. They can justify anything to themselves, though I reckon as no one regrets his actions more than Jack. You’ve put him on too high a pedestal, love. He were bound to fall off. My Arthur did. He crashed right through the floor. I thought as he were different.

  You’d have thought as I’d have learned about men enough to see the fall coming, but I didn’t.’

  Megan felt she’d nothing in her to give Hattie, so she just patted her gloved hand. It was an action they both used at such times.

  ‘Is it going to be all right for you and Harry? I mean, can you learn to trust again?’

  ‘Oh, aye, I think as you can. I’ll not bring me pain from Arthur and crucify Harry with it. He don’t deserve that. But I’ll be more careful, as I know you will. I’ll not look on Harry as some kind of God just because he loves me. I’ll keep in mind that he’s a person and can make mistakes. But I know what he’s offering me is a truth. He don’t want to just take me – he wants to marry me. That’s first time that has happened to me, and thou knows sommat? I’m not for going to his bed until he does make me his wife! But I’m not letting him know, so poor thing keeps trying.’

  ‘Oh, Hattie . . . oh, don’t make me laugh. It hurts. And stop messing with him. He doesn’t deserve that. You know you love him, so put him out of his misery. Your games might come back to haunt you.’

  They were interrupted by the opening of the door, and Issy put her head around it. ‘Megan lass, Bridget and her husband Edward are downstairs. I thought I’d come up first and see as you’re ready.’

  Megan gave her a smile. She wanted to put Issy’s mind at rest about her having known all and not told her.

  Issy came into the room, talking as she walked.

  ‘There’s sommat that’s reet funny, lass. Bridget looks just like you! They say as men often pick women as look like their mam or their sister. Well, you wouldn’t credit it. And, you know, she takes after her da. He comes right back to me mind, when I look at her. Though I’ve often said, haven’t I, as you remind me of someone? And I still can’t get over the coincidence. Fancy her being Bert’s sister! And fancy him landing up here, where she were brought up.’

  ‘That wasn’t chance, Issy.’ Megan’s hand went to her neck. She wanted to hold her locket, to feel the comfort it always provided her. But it wasn’t there! She looked around her as she told them how Bert had come to these parts because he’d wanted to be near where his mam and sister had lived.

  ‘What is it, love? Have you lost something?’ Issy asked.

  ‘Me locket.’

  ‘It’s here. They had to take it off you in the hospital.’ Issy opened a drawer of the chest opposite the bed. As she brought it over, it twirled in her hand, glinting as the light caught it.

  ‘Oh, look. There’s an inscription on it.’ Issy squinted at the locket. ‘To Catch a . . . a Dream . . . Good God! No, it can’t be the same one.’

  ‘What do you mean: the same one?’ Hattie asked. ‘The same one as what?’

  ‘I – I’ve seen this afore. A long time ago. Where did you get it, lass?’

  Megan felt her stomach muscles tighten. She told Issy and Hattie the story of the locket and of her mam dying at her birth.

  ‘Well, well! I’ll have to sit down a mo.’ Issy shook her head from side to side. ‘Megan love, I feel as though all me coincidences are coming together, but I’m afraid of the outcome. If this locket holds the pictures of Will and Bridie, then . . . my God! If they are your grandparents, then . . . then Bridget – no! No, it couldn’t be. You said as your mam died. And yet, how like Will and Bridget you are. The same dark eyes, the lovely olive-coloured skin and the high cheekbones.’

  ‘What . . . what’re you saying, Issy?’

  ‘I don’t know, lass. I need to look inside. Will that be all right, love?’

  Megan’s ‘Yes’ was little more than a whisper.

  Issy’s hands shook and her mouth dropped open.

  ‘Tell me, Issy. Please tell me.’

  Issy stood up and came over to her side. ‘Megan love, I have no alternative but to tell you, but I wish I had. I’m afraid me news isn’t all good.’ She held the open locket up. ‘This here is Will and Bridie Hadler, and they were Bridget’s mam and dad. They had no other surviving children, so if they were your granny and granddad . . .’

  The silence that followed was fraught with tension as each absorbed the information.

  Megan slumped back on her pillows. She could hardly breathe. Bert’s half-sister was her mam. She was about to meet her mam! Her mam was alive! Her world had gone mad. Bert and her mam, related!

  Nobody spoke. Megan knew they’d already come to realize what had just dawned on her. ‘Billy and me . . . share the same grandmother. Billy’s an inbred! Oh, Hattie, Issy . . .’

  They both looked distraught. Both seemed dumbstruck.

  ‘What do I do? How do I face Bridget? Will she know me?’ The emotions that were churning about inside her provoked so many questions, the answers to which all held fear in her. And yet didn’t some of the answers hold what she’d always longed to know? Who her family were? Who she was?

  ‘One thing you can do nothing about, love, is Billy’s inbreeding. It weren’t your fault.’

  ‘It were in a way, Issy. I could’ve shown me locket to Bert afore we were wed. I nearly did. But I always wanted to keep it to meself. It were the first thing as ever belonged to me, proper like. I kept it from everybody. If only I’d have shown it.’

  ‘If only begets if only. But it don’t alter nowt. We’ve to deal with things as they are. Now, how Bridget and you deal with finding each other – and what the tale is behind her giving you up – will soon be upon you, and that’s me worry at the moment. Are you feeling up to it, Megan love? Or does you want us to put Bridget off for a while? After all, you’ve so much to come to terms with.’

  ‘No! I mean . . . no, Issy love. I want to see her. I need to.’ A tear trickled down her cheek, and as she turned to talk to Issy another ran over the bridge of her nose. ‘It should be a joyful time – me finding me mam – but it’s not. I have so much inside me. So much to tell. I . . .’ A sob caught in her throat. How much more could she possibly take? How much?

  ‘Oh, Megan love.’

  ‘Shift over, Issy.’ Hattie put a stop to Issy’s sympathetic flow by pushing her way nearer to Megan, then kneeling in front of her. ‘Megan lass, I know it’s come at a bad time, but isn’t it what we always dreamed of: finding our mams? Well, no matter what else has happened or is happening, surely that’s the one bright spark amongst it all? Think on it, love. You’ve found your mam!’

  Megan looked at Hattie. She was right. How often had they lain awake together into the early hours, two lost little souls, longing to know who they were and where their mams were? And, in the years since, how often had she felt pain when she’d been told her mam was dead? But she wasn’t dead. She was here. Here, in this very house. And she had no idea what she was walking into.

  ‘Hattie, you’re right. I just can’t take it all in. I – I mean, how will it be when I see her? On top of that, I have some things in me as I’ve not spoken of, and I’m scared.’

  ‘Don’t be scared, love. Like we said, we’re all here for you. We’ll help you. Is it about what happened?’

  ‘Yes. Billy did kill Bert. He hit him with his crutch. And . . . and he meant to. Oh, Hattie. He hit him over and over – me little lad. Me little lad. He – he had an evil in him. And – and it were all my fault.’

  ‘It weren’t your fault, lass; it were Bert’s. And, aye, Jack has some guilt an’ all, as does that Mrs Harvey. But not you, Megan love. You were just the victim of it all. Look, love, we had an idea that’s how it all happened, from what you said earlier. Jack has a good lawyer, and we’ll tell him all about it.’

  ‘But what will happen to Billy?’

  Hattie
told her what the lawyer had said would most likely happen.

  Megan’s heart, though already splintered, seemed to shatter in her breast on hearing this. Aye, Billy had killed his dad, but the sin wasn’t his. It was hers. Hadn’t she put a terror in him about what might happen if his dad caught up with them? And it did happen. In front of his very eyes! He must have felt that he had no choice. Poor Billy, how would he bear being locked up in an institution? No! No, she’d not be able to bear it, either. There would be no help for him. Those places were . . . No, she couldn’t think about it.

  She lay back and closed her eyes. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to try to sort everything out in her head. She didn’t feel that she could face Bridget, or face having her confirm that she was her mam.

  After a few moments she heard the door close. She opened her eyes. Hattie was standing by the window, looking out. Megan closed her eyes again. Her head throbbed. The turmoil inside was too much to cope with. She longed to be lying in Jack’s arms, looking up at that protective canopy. She wanted to feel the happiness and peace she’d felt then. Oh, Jack, Jack . . .

  Her thoughts turned to Bert. He was gone – gone forever. The thought should have made her feel relieved, but it didn’t. Not that she’d wish him back, but in his death he’d won. He’d destroyed Billy and Jack, aye, and her as well, because she’d never be the same again. None of them would.

  The tears she’d stemmed earlier came back to sting her eyes. The pain in her heart twisted and turned to agony, as she tried to imagine what it was like for Jack.

  She became aware of a hand holding hers and opened her eyes. She looked into Hattie’s. Her eyes, too, were misted with tears. ‘Don’t give up, Megan love. Don’t give up. Jack’s going to need you, and so is Billy. And, aye, Issy and me an’ all – all of us need you.’ The mist dissolved into a wetness, and a tear flowed down Hattie’s cheek.

  Megan leaned forward and wiped it. ‘I’ll try not to, Hattie.’

  Suddenly it was as if they were children again, with all the pain of their childhood now piled high with the turmoil of the present. Hattie rested her head in Megan’s lap and they allowed the tears to flow silently down their cheeks.

  ‘I’m scared, thou knows, Hattie. After all we dreamed it would be like, and it’s not. I feel that scared, I feel like changing me mind and not seeing me mam. I don’t know how it should all happen, or even if we should tell her what we know. And s’pose as Sister Bernadette were lying to me, and the folk in me locket are not me grandparents.’

  ‘No, she weren’t – I know that. Anyroad, Issy said as you looked like Bridget’s dad, and you do – the features on his face are yours. And, Megan, Bridget herself is like an older version of you. Not that much older. I reckon as she had you very young. Look, love, how about I get Issy to tell Bridget, afore she comes up? Wouldn’t that be better than dropping it on her in front of you?’

  ‘Aye, it would. It’d be better for her an’ all. Give her a chance to get used to the idea afore she meets me. It’s going to be a shock to her. Her own half-brother’s wife . . . oh, Hattie.’

  ‘All right, love. Shall I take the locket with me? I think it would help in Issy’s telling.’

  Megan handed over the locket. Hattie’s hand shook as she reached out to take it and in a hurried movement she bent forward and kissed Megan on the cheek, then left. Megan knew that Hattie was anxious because she would have to face seeing her united with her mam, whilst still not knowing of her own mam, or knowing of a time she ever would. But then that’s how it’d always been with us – me getting the best end of the stick. Though it changed some when I got Bert. But even then Megan sensed that Hattie would have liked her status as a married woman. Dear God – status! Oh, aye, she’d had status, but for the most part it had been a living hell.

  To think that Bert was the half-brother of her own mam! Was it bloodline that had drawn her to him? Because she’d always sensed something about him, although she’d known it wasn’t love; and, despite all Bert did, she never lost that feeling for him. In a way she even felt some pity for him now. She could see the tragedy of their ever getting together with one another. Maybe, if he’d met up with someone else who really loved him, as a woman should love her man, he’d have been different. And what of Billy? Was he unstable? Aye, she had to face it. Deep down inside her, she’d known a lot of his actions were not just a lad’s way, as they were put down to. Billy was unstable. Billy needed help, and it wasn’t to be wondered at; after all, he was an inbred and it was known that inbreds often had sommat wrong with them. She couldn’t take it in; she’d sinned by laying with a close relative, and hadn’t even known it.

  The painful laughter threatened to erupt again, but Megan wouldn’t let it. No. If she did, she’d not be able to stop, and she’d fall into a deep pit of madness. She was needed. Despite the horror of everything, she had to stay strong – strong for Billy and Jack, and strong enough to meet the woman who might be her mam. In some ways it would be better if she wasn’t. It would be better if a mistake had been made by Sister Bernadette. At least then one part of the nightmare that she was currently living wouldn’t actually be real.

  47

  A Reunion Marred by Revelation

  ‘Megan. Megan, love . . .’

  Megan hadn’t realized she’d had her eyes closed so tightly. The voice brought them open, and as the concerned and loving face of the voice came into focus, she knew it was all real. ‘Mam?’

  There was a silence. Megan waited, holding her breath, then sighed with a relief that she hadn’t expected to feel as Bridget said, ‘Yes, dear.’

  ‘Oh, Mam.’

  A gentle hand stroked hers. Glistening tears of joy fell down the smiling, beautiful face. ‘I can’t believe it – it’s like a miracle. My own baby . . .’

  They stayed like that for a moment, neither knowing what to say. Megan felt a surge of love for Bridget. It was a love that forgave all. Nothing mattered – not why, not all the loneliness – nothing. All that mattered was that her mam was here. Her very own mam.

  It was Bridget who asked the first question. ‘Has all of your life been awful, Megan dear? I mean, have you had some happy times?’

  She thought for a moment. Recent events stopped her mind from giving forth any happy memories to speak of, but then a laughing Cissy came to her, and with the image came many happy moments of their time together. And then she thought of Hattie and all they had been to each other. And of the moment little Billy was born. And how lucky she was to have Issy and Sarah and Jack; above all, Jack . . . Yes, she’d known happiness. She’d known the greatest happiness of all – the love given to her by Jack. She nodded. ‘Aye, Mam, I’ve had a lot of happiness mixed in with the bad.’

  ‘I’m glad, dear. Oh, Megan, I’m so sorry, I—’

  ‘No, don’t be sorry. It’s all right. You’re here now, and that’s all that matters.’ But it wasn’t, and suddenly she did want to know why she had been left, who her dad was and what had happened to him. What had her mam’s life been like? What . . . ? Oh God, she wanted to know the answer to so many things that had troubled her all her life. But then she remembered that her mam had just lost her half-brother without ever being reunited with him. ‘Bert – I mean, he was your half-brother and he . . . Well, I didn’t know he were . . .’

  ‘I know, dear. The fact that we’re all blood relatives is marring our coming together. How could anybody ever prepare for such a thing happening? I did ask Sister Bernadette to tell you everything. I told her to tell you about Bert, and where he lived, and . . . and about me. And I contacted her just as soon as I was in a position to take care of you. She told me you had been adopted and that I should keep you in my prayers, but that I would never be allowed to have the details of your adoption. Why? Why did she do such a thing? I trusted her.’

  ‘She told me you were dead, and that I had no family alive. That you’d never revealed who me dad were. Only thing she said were that it wasn’t your fault – you had been at
tacked by someone you trusted.’

  Bridget bowed her head.

  ‘Yes, that is true.’ She paused and took a deep breath. ‘The man who raped me was someone I trusted. I worked for him and his wife at the corner shop on the street where we lived. I’d loved him and his wife, and they were very good to me and Bert. They seemed so happy together, but then I found out the truth – or realized it as I grew up. He wasn’t a nice man. I’m sorry, I know I am talking about your father, dear, but he was a malicious individual and his wife suffered. The shock of what he did was beyond anything I’d known – not just the rape, but Bert’s dad, my step-dad’s involvement in it and his future plans for me.’ Tears ran down her cheeks and her face filled with distress.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Mam, I understand. Don’t upset yourself further. It’s in the past. All that matters is that you are here now. Have you any other children?’

  ‘Yes, two boys, Richard and Mark. They don’t know where we are, or anything about their Uncle Bert dying. We will tell them when they are older. They think we are on holiday – they are with their grandparents. They’ll be having a good time getting spoilt. Richard is eleven and Mark is ten.’

  ‘That’s grand. Not only a mam, but two brothers as well! Only you don’t have to tell them about me, either, Mam. They are too young to hear our tale. Best we give them time to grow up without any complications. We can say I am a long-lost cousin or sommat.’

  ‘No, darling, they have always known about you, though they think I was married before. And every night, when we say our prayers, they pray for Mummy’s lost little girl and my lost half-brother, and – funny, this – but after your letter, they pray for Bert’s wife and his son, whom they thought was their cousin, which of course Billy is, and yet . . . Oh dear, it is all so complicated.’

  ‘We’ll have to find a way round it all for them, but not yet, not yet, Mam.’