The Long Way Home: A moving saga of lost family

by Whitmee, Jeanne

  The Long Way Home

  Jeanne Whitmee

  © Jeanne Whitmee 1993

  Jeanne Whitmee has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1993 by Judy Piatkus (Publishers) Ltd.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  For Lynn Curtis.

  In gratitude for her help and encouragement.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 1

  Marie looked again at her watch. Liam had given it to her. It had a small oval face and it was made of real gold. It was her most precious possession. The tiny hands pointed to the half hour. Half-past six. She had been here almost three hours now and still there was no sign of Bridget, the woman who was supposed to meet her. If only she knew what Liam’s sister looked like. Her troubled eyes raked the sea of bustling travellers in search of a woman with Liam’s features, but the faces all around her were alien. Preoccupied with their own lives, they hurried past the young fair-haired girl standing so patiently by the bookstall without giving her a second glance.

  Marie moved the new blue suitcase out of the way as a woman almost stumbled over it and glared crossly at her.

  It was a cold, unfriendly place, she decided, Paddington Station. No one had smiled at her or asked if they could help as they would have done back home. She’d already double checked that she was in the right place. ‘Wait by the bookstall,’ Liam had said. There was no other bookstall, so she must be right. Marie watched the taxis that drove right into the station to park in a line down the middle. She watched the wheeling pigeons that swooped for crumbs and waddled precariously among the heedless feet. She watched the ebb and flow of people surging back and forth like the waves of the sea whenever a train came in. But most of all she watched the time — both on the tiny face of her watch and on the big white face of the station clock. But Bridget didn’t come.

  It was cold. Only September, yet the gusty draughts that swirled around her legs made her shiver. She drew her inadequate coat more closely around her. The buttons wouldn’t fasten any more. Although there were four months still to go before the birth of her baby her stomach was already large. Her back ached from standing so long, and so did her legs. She was hungry too. She hadn’t eaten anything today, except for the sandwich she’d bought on the train this morning and she longed desperately for a cup of tea. There was a buffet bar a few yards away. She caught the savoury whiff of hot food from time to time as the doors opened to let customers in or out. It tantalised her nostrils and made her mouth water, but she was afraid to move from this place in case Bridget might come and go away again, thinking she hadn’t come.

  Marie shifted her weight from one leg to the other, wishing there was somewhere to sit down. The crossing from Belfast to Liverpool had seemed endless and the sea had been so rough. She’d been dreadfully sick on the ferry — and so relieved when the train finally arrived at Euston. She’d got a bit muddled over the Underground and worried in case she’d be late at Paddington Station and keep Bridget waiting. But she’d arrived ten minutes early. She remembered her relief; thinking that at last her journey was almost over. Yet here she was three hours later. Still waiting.

  The station was quiet again now, in the lull between trains. What should she do? Soon it would start to get dark and it was beginning to look as though she must face the fact that Bridget wasn’t coming. Panic made her heart lurch. She had no address. No telephone number to contact. She hadn’t enough money for an hotel either. Where would she sleep? Liam had been so positive that Bridget would be here to meet her — to take her home and look after her until he could join them. But now she was alone and helpless in this strange unfriendly place.

  Then suddenly she spotted a woman coming towards her, smiling. She had blue eyes and dark curly hair. Marie’s heart leapt with relief as she stepped forward.

  ‘Please, would you be Bridget?’

  The woman looked startled. ‘No. I’m sorry.’ Despair hit her like a hammer blow. The station began to tip sideways. The press of hurrying people seemed to crowd in on her suffocatingly. In her head the voice of the public address system echoed and boomed. The train now standing-standing-standing … The platform came rushing up to meet her — and everything went black.

  When Marie came round she was sitting in some kind of office. The woman with the blue eyes whom she’d taken for Bridget was bending over her, a glass of water in her hand.

  ‘Here, dear. It’s all right. I’m a nurse. Have a sip of water. You’ll soon feel better.’ She glanced at Marie’s rounded abdomen.

  ‘When’s the baby due, dear?’

  ‘December,’ Marie whispered.

  The woman looked surprised. ‘Not till then?’ Marie frowned as the memory of where and why she was here filtered back. She tried to get to her feet. ‘I must — I’ve got to go. Someone is waiting …’

  ‘No. You mustn’t. You’re not — Oh!’ The woman cried out as Marie gave a groan and sank to the floor again.

  In the moments that followed there was general confusion as people crowded around, arguing over what best to do. Someone suggested sending for an ambulance, but the woman with the blue eyes said that they should first try to find out who she was and locate this person who was supposed to be waiting. Maybe it was her husband and he’d be worrying. Marie could only groan uncomprehendingly when they questioned her. Her small handbag yielded nothing helpful except the sailing ticket that showed she had arrived from Belfast that morning.

  The staff in the station master’s office looked at one another doubtfully and a feeling of silent apprehension settled over the place like a pall. Someone lifted the telephone and sent for the police.

  While the woman with the blue eyes helped Marie into an adjoining room and sat with her, a railway policeman opened her case — and it was then that he found the explosive device, hidden away at the bottom wrapped in the shawl she had knitted for the coming baby.

  *

  ‘Miss O’Connor, I’ll ask you again — what was in the suitcase?’

  Sitting in the interview room at the police station, her heart drumming with fear and bewilderment, Marie repeated her description of the few clothes packed in the new suitcase, and the baby clothes she had made herself.

  The other policeman asked: ‘So who made the bomb? Who put it there if you didn’t?’

  Marie looked up, her eyes wide with fear. ‘I’ve told you, I don’t know anything about a bomb. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Where did you stay the night before you left Ireland?’

  ‘With Liam.’

  ‘And who is Liam?’

  ‘My boyfriend.’

  ‘So it was his idea? Where were you to plant it?’

  ‘Nowhere. There wasn’t …’

  ‘Why did he send you — in your condition? Is he completely heartless? Did you realise that when we foun
d it there was only another half an hour left before it was timed to explode? Perhaps he had a reason …’ The policeman leaned closer. ‘Perhaps he was trying to kill two birds with one stone.’

  She stared at them, open-mouthed with horror. ‘No. He wouldn’t. We were going to be married.’ She shook her head disbelievingly. It wasn’t possible. They were saying — implying — that Liam had sent her to England with a bomb, hoping that she and the baby … She closed her eyes and bit hard on her lip, trying to shut out the unspeakable suggestions they were putting into her mind.

  ‘All right, what’s his full name?’

  ‘Costello — Liam Costello. But he isn’t the kind of person you say. Not at all. You’re wrong about him. Wrong. This is all a mistake — a terrible mistake.’ Tears trickled slowly down her cheeks. It was a nightmare. Surely she must soon wake and find it had all been a bad dream.

  The policeman leaned towards her again. ‘Then you’re saying that you agreed to do it for him, Marie?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I didn’t. I didn’t.’

  ‘He sent you without telling you about the bomb then?’

  ‘No. He wouldn’t do that — not to me.’

  ‘Right, let’s begin again from the beginning. Why did you come to England? Where were you going?’

  ‘Who were you to meet?’

  ‘Come on now, Marie, why don’t you tell us the truth? Who are you shielding?’

  ‘If it’s Liam, he isn’t worth it, you know.’

  ‘Maybe there’s someone else. Did he have friends? Were there more than one?’

  The relentless questions hammered into her brain and the men’s faces loomed over her, so close that they became distorted, ugly in their intensity. She shook her head, her throat swelling painfully and her eyes scalded by tears.

  ‘No — no. It isn’t true.’

  ‘How many, Marie? Just give us their names. No one will blame you for something you’ve been tricked into and you’ve nothing to be loyal to, now have you?’

  The voices hardened, became impatient: ‘Come on now. You’d better tell us the truth. It’ll be easier for you if you do.’

  Her head ached unbearably and she covered her face with trembling hands. The room began to spin and the darkness began to close in on her again, folding its thick black wings suffocatingly around her.

  *

  Marie’s eyes snapped open. She was gasping for breath. Her heart was thumping and her nightdress clung damply to her body. In the darkness of the room she could hear the calm familiar sounds of the clock ticking and the deep regular breathing of Ralph, her husband, sleeping beside her. She lay very still, waiting for her heartbeat to steady and her breathing to return to normal. It was a long time — twenty years since it happened. At first the dream had haunted her frequently, but it was a long time now since it had come to revive the hateful memories. Yet no matter how long the interval between it was always the same. Always bad.

  What had triggered the dream? She didn’t have to ask herself that. It was Hannah’s letter. She visualised it, lying at the bottom of her underwear drawer, hidden beneath the lining paper. It was almost a week since it had arrived, to fill her with excitement overlaid with fear. If Ralph were to find out … She felt her heart lurch sickeningly at the thought.

  After a while she slipped silently out of bed, put on her dressing gown and went through to the kitchen. It was just getting light and as she waited for the kettle to boil she looked out at the view of the sea. She loved the view from the flat. The sea could look so blue and tranquil when the sun shone, but now, in the cold grey light of an early winter morning it looked bleak and hostile with angry waves crashing on the sandy beach. Even from their flat on the top floor of the clifftop hotel, she could hear its boom and roar. She paused for a moment to watch the flying spray, imagining the rattle of the shingle as the ebbing tide dragged it inexorably back into the seabed.

  It was only a few weeks till Christmas, she reminded herself. Everything would be all right then. The Ocean Hotel was booked solid for the holiday. The thought warmed and cheered her. She loved the bustle of organisation; managing the staff, planning menus and entertainment — generally making sure that people had a good time. It had been her life, her whole existence for the past fifteen years. It was still all she really lived for.

  The kettle boiled and she made tea and sat on one of the stools at the worktop, her still trembling hands cupped around the mug. The dream had shaken her badly. She could go for whole months at a time without even thinking of Liam and of all that had happened all those years ago — of his betrayal and the terrible thing he had done to her. Then something would happen to remind her and the dream would come again to drag her back, just as the tide dragged the pebbles back into the sea. However much she tried to put it behind her there was no escape. It was always there on the fringes of her life, waiting in the shadows. And now — now perhaps the time had come when she must turn and face it, she told herself with despairing resignation.

  She had been sixteen when she first met him. The nuns at the convent children’s home where she’d grown up had obtained a job for her as chambermaid at a Belfast hotel. She’d been happy there. For the first time in her life she had a small room she could call her own and a little money to spend as she wished. Most of the people she met were kind. Sometimes they gave her tips or small gifts. Then came Liam. He was something else. Something quite else. Never in her life had she met anyone as attractive. He could have charmed the proverbial birds out of the trees with his fascinating Dublin accent, his ready smile and that infectious, devil-may-care laugh. He had the brightest brown eyes she had ever seen, and his hair was as shiny and black as a raven’s wing. He was tall and handsome, but, most miraculous of all, Liam seemed as smitten with her as she was with him.

  He took her out on her days off — to cinemas and restaurants, places she had never seen the inside of before. He bought her presents, things she had only ever seen in shop windows: flowers and chocolates, the tiny gold watch and a ring with a pretty blue stone. He was the first man she had ever allowed to kiss her. Very soon Marie was head over heels in love; so much in love that it sometimes hurt her just to look at him. So much in love that she would have done anything — anything at all not to lose him.

  When she had discovered that she was pregnant she’d been so afraid. Perhaps Liam would be angry. What if he abandoned her? What would she do if she lost her job and had nowhere to go? But she needn’t have feared. Liam had been surprised, even a little shocked at first, but he had soon recovered and started to make plans. He decided that she should work for as long as she could, then he would buy her a ticket and send her to England — to his sister Bridget in London who would look after her until he was able to join her. He would get a job easily enough, he told her confidently. They would buy a little house and live in England; beside the sea perhaps. It would be better for the baby to be brought up somewhere peaceful — away from all the troubles. Marie was happy and so relieved. How could she ever have doubted Liam? It all sounded so wonderful.

  When the time came he bought her a new suitcase. Marie gave in her notice and left her job at the hotel, then she moved into Liam’s flat until her sailing date. In those few idyllic days she knew more happiness than in her entire life before. She packed the new suitcase with her own things and the baby clothes she had made with such loving care. She listened carefully to all Liam’s instructions, wishing they could go together but accepting that he must stay for a while. On the day he took her to catch the ferry he promised he would be with her within the month. It was the last she ever saw of him.

  Marie was charged with ‘conspiracy to cause an explosion’ and remanded in custody to await the birth of her baby. It was while she was in the remand home that she met Hannah Brown, the social worker assigned to her. She was the first person Marie had met in England who believed in her innocence. And she truly believed that it was Hannah who saved her sanity.

  ‘You have to thin
k of the future, Marie. What are you going to do when the baby comes?’

  ‘I won’t part with it,’ she said vehemently. ‘They can’t take it from me, can they?’ f

  ‘Of course not. But you must make plans. If you intend to keep your baby you must pick yourself up and start again. You’ll need to be able to earn enough money to keep the two of you. But you’re young. You can do it.’

  She persuaded Marie to think about training for a job, so that when she was discharged she could have a better life than she had before.

  ‘Find out what you’re good at,’ she urged.

  ‘But if they find me guilty — if they send me to prison?’ Marie asked fearfully.

  ‘They won’t. You must think positively.’

  ‘Liam will come forward when he hears about it, won’t he? He’ll tell them it’s all a terrible mistake.’

  ‘Of course he will.’

  ‘I have to keep my baby.’

  ‘And so you shall. You’ll manage somehow, if you really want to.’

  But when Marie was six and a half months pregnant the prison doctor told her during a routine examination that she was carrying twins.

  ‘Had you thought about letting them go for adoption?’ The middle-aged woman doctor faced Marie across her desk. Her attitude was pragmatic but not unkind.

  ‘I’ve made up my mind — I want to keep my baby,’ Marie met the doctor’s eyes appealingly.

  ‘Without support it’s not really viable. You’d do better by yourself and the children if you let them go.’

  Marie nodded numbly, but deep inside the words hadn’t sunk in. The doctor could be wrong. Maybe it was just one baby after all. Everything would be all right. It had to be.

  She went into premature labour one night in late October, giving birth to a healthy baby girl at ten minutes to midnight. Another daughter, tiny and underweight but yelling lustily, was born twenty minutes later. Marie’s heart sank. The joy and accomplishment of birth was shadowed by crushing, overwhelming defeat. Now she had to face reality. She might just have managed to keep one baby, but two? It would be impossible. The doctor had been right. It was impractical and unfair — to herself and to the babies. Much better for them to be adopted by loving parents who would give them a good start in life; all the things that Marie herself had never had. She had nothing to offer them; no home, no money, no father. She faced the fact that she had no real choice in the matter.