by Anne Bennett
She grumbled about it, of course, and said it was a lot of fuss about nothing, but neither of them took any notice. And when she was in bed and screamed at them both to ‘Get out and leave me alone,’ they knew whatever had happened to her had not improved her temper at all.
A little later Dr Green faced them across the room and said gravely, ‘I’m afraid that Mrs Sullivan is extremely ill. She has a tumour the size of a small football in her stomach. I wanted her to go into hospital for tests, but she wouldn’t hear of it.’
Tom hid a wry smile for he could just imagine how Biddy told the doctor that.
Joe asked, ‘What is the treatment, Doctor?’
‘Something for the pain is all I can offer.’
‘You mean…?’
‘I mean your mother is dying,’ the doctor said. ‘I am sorry, but there is nothing further I can do for her.’
Tom and Joe looked stunned, but Gloria wasn’t really surprised. ‘Does she know, Doctor?’ she asked.
‘I haven’t told her in so many words,’ the doctor said, ‘but the woman is no fool.’
‘And how long has she?’
The doctor shook his head. ‘Not long, weeks. Certainly before Christmas.’
At the very end of October, with his mother going downhill fairly rapidly, Tom was surprised and overjoyed on going into the post office to find a letter from Molly. He ripped it open eagerly and scanned it quickly. How disappointed he was then, for the letter was stark and totally uninformative and gave no explanation of why she had not written before, or what she was doing now, but stated only that her grandfather was dead and she had found Kevin in an orphanage. The only good thing to say about it was that it showed that Molly and Kevin were both alive.
Nellie had received a similar letter, and so had Cathy. As she told Tom, it was what Molly didn’t say, more than what she did say, that was the most worrying part.
Tom agreed. His first inclination was to go to Birmingham but Molly had put no address on the letter so he still had no idea where in Birmingham she was.
Just over a week later, Joe, now beginning to help around the farm, had taken the churns to the head of the lane to await the truck from the creamery to collect them, while Tom was cleaning out the byre, when the postman put his head around the door.
‘Your brother said that I would find you here,’ he said, delving in his sack. ‘I have a small package for you from England in a hand I don’t recognise, and Nellie said to bring it straight to you in case it was important.’
Tom took the package from the postman, who asked, ‘Any idea who it’s from?’
‘Not until I open it,’ Tom said. He wanted to be on his own when he did that because he was totally mystified. The postman would have liked to have lingered, but he had other letters to deliver and Tom waited until he was cycling up the lane again before he broke the sealing wax.
The package was from Paul Simmons. Tom had to think for a moment before he remembered that he was the man who had employed Molly’s father and later sent money to Molly every month. He launched a blistering attack on Tom in the letter he wrote.
What in God’s name were you doing letting Molly, a young and defenceless girl, go alone to Birmingham, a city that has been bombed to blazes? Your irresponsibility in this matter beggars belief. When your mother took on guardianship of Molly, I consoled myself that at least the child would be cared for adequately, and I now find that you have failed in that duty too. You are an absolute disgrace and I would be surprised if you could sleep in your bed at night. And just in case you think I am overreacting, and possibly Molly has not kept you up to date, I am sending you the cuttings of the trial. There were reports in the Despatch and the Evening Mail, which you can read for your self while I make arrangements to contact Molly without delay.
When Tom read the cuttings he could hardly believe it. He learned how his innocent and naïve niece was abducted at New Street Station by two depraved individuals. The city was being pounded by the worst raid in the war and Molly, who’d had no experience of raids at all, was understandably terrified. In the guise of helping her, the men soon had her ensconced in a flat and pumped so full of drugs she didn’t know what she was doing; or that the men were preening her for the whorehouse.
It was a man called Will Baker that rescued her and hid her at great risk to himself and his family. However, later, vicious thugs tracked her down, attacked her and injured her so badly she nearly died. It tore at Tom’s heartstrings that Molly should suffer at the hands of such corrupt and perverted brutes. He didn’t underestimate either the bravery it took for her to face the men who had sought to hurt her, even kill her, and to say what dreadful things they had done to her in front of a jury of perfect strangers.
Tom wasn’t offended by what Paul Simmons wrote to him. He deserved that and more, and he put his head in his hands and wept.
He was still in tears when Joe returned to the byre and he made no attempt to explain his distress. He just passed over the package and let Joe read everything for himself. He read it all in silence and when he eventually finished and looked up, Tom noted his eyes were very bright and his voice a little husky as he said, ‘God, Tom, this is terrible. I am shocked to the core.’
‘I just feel so bloody inadequate.’
‘How could you have done anything different?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Joe,’ Tom said, ‘but something, surely to God. I’d like to go over and see her now this minute and yet Mammy is so sick, I daren’t.’
‘You don’t know her address either, do you?’
‘No.’
‘This Paul Simmons must have it if he is going to contact her.’
Tom shrugged. ‘Maybe he has, but if so, he would hardly give it to me. The cuttings said she worked at the Naafi in Castle Bromwich Airfield and so maybe he will get in touch with her that way.’
‘Well, couldn’t you do the same?’
‘Aye,’ Tom said. ‘And I will as soon as Mammy…’
‘We could send for you if she took a turn for the worse.’
‘Come on, Joe,’ Tom said. ‘You know as well as I do that any turn Mammy takes for the worse now will be her death.’
‘You owe her nothing, Tom.’
‘She is my mother,’ Tom said. ‘Bad as she is, I can’t leave her now.’
Three days later a very welcome letter came from Molly. In it she said that Paul Simmons had been to see her and told her of the letter he had sent to him, and Molly had told him he had been wrong to do that. She went on:
I told him there were no words written that would have stopped me going to Birmingham at that time, especially after I received the note that Kevin wrote. You have probably read all this and more in the cuttings Paul said he sent you, but what happened to me in Birmingham was partly my own fault. I might have fared better if there hadn’t been a massive raid, which began just after I had alighted from the train. I must admit, it scared me witless. I hadn’t a clue what to do in the event of a raid. The two men who approached me used to trawl the stations on the lookout for runaways and the like, and they took advantage of my fear and confusion. They were so kind and attentive that I was taken in, and very soon I couldn’t remember who I was or why I was in Birmingham because they had pumped me full of drugs.
Even after I was rescued and had recovered my wits enough to remember what I was doing in the city, I was too ashamed to write to you, or explain why I hadn’t written earlier. I am sorry about it; I know you must have been worried.
I did manage to locate Kevin and he is living with me now. We are both grand and I have met a wonderful man called Mark Baxter, who I would like you to meet, as he has become very special in my life.
Tom treasured that letter. This time Molly had included her address, so Tom wrote a long letter back and told her he would be over as soon as he saw his mother buried.
TWENTY-SIX
Each day Tom, Joe, Gloria and, especially, Ben waited for Biddy to breathe her last.
�
�It’s just awful, isn’t it?’ Tom said. ‘We’re sort of willing her to die.’
‘Tom, she has no quality of life,’ Joe said. ‘Gloria is quite worn down with her demands and abuse.’
Tom knew that was true. Gloria looked quite drawn at times, and in early December she had actually told Joe she didn’t know how much longer she could continue.
A couple of days later, in the throes of one of her many tantrums, Biddy suddenly went stiff and her eyes rolled in her head.
‘A stroke, and a bad one at that,’ the doctor pronounced. ‘Something I have been expecting for years.’
Biddy had no movement below her neck and was unable to speak. Joe asked Gloria if she wanted his mother to be transferred to the hospital. Gloria, however, said she had managed so far, and in a way it was easier dealing with someone who wasn’t constantly shouting at her and slapping out all the time.
‘She can’t go on much longer like this, I wouldn’t have thought,’ Tom said, but Biddy lasted seven more weeks, until the end of January 1943, to die a tormented and painful death.
Biddy had few mourners at the funeral, which was held on Friday, 4 February, and they stood shivering in the snow-capped graveyard, listening to the priest intoning prayers for the dear departed, his breath causing whispery trails to spill from his mouth into the icy air.
Then Tom stepped forward to drop the first clod of earth on top of the coffin. He had no sense of grief at his mother’s passing, just relief that it was over at last, that he was free. There was no wake, just a few drinks down at Grant’s Bar. Though Tom’s hand was shaken many times, and he was bought numerous drinks, no one actually said they were sorry that his mother was dead.
Tom and Joe didn’t stay late and yet it was pitch-black when they stepped out of the pub, and the air so raw it caught at the back of Tom’s throat. It had snowed earlier that day so the tramp of their boots made little sound. Around them the countryside was hushed and the night was a clear one so the full moon, like a golden orb, cast its light on them as they walked, and twinkling stars peppered the sky.
Tom couldn’t help comparing his mother’s funeral with that of his father, which nearly the whole town attended. He said to Joe, ‘Not much of a turn-out.’
‘Huh,’ Joe said. ‘And can you wonder at it?’
‘No,’ Tom said with a sigh. ‘What a wasted life, when all’s said and done. Mammy was eaten up with bitterness and died virtually friendless.’
‘It was her own doing,’ Joe said. ‘Look how stupid she was about things, like we weren’t even allowed to mention Nuala’s name after that letter, remember? Or Aggie before that? I feel so sorry for Aggie having to cut herself off from the family the way she did.’
‘It was the only solution at the time,’ Tom said. ‘There was no way around it. Poor Aggie.’
‘Course, she could be dead and gone by now,’ Joe commented.
‘Well, she could,’ Tom replied with spirit, ‘but she was only two years older than me, you know, and I don’t intend to go heavenwards for a long time yet.’
‘Who said you will be going heavenwards anyway?’ Joe said. ‘I reckon it will be the downward spiral for you.’
‘I’ll meet plenty of friends there, anyway,’ Tom said. ‘As long as I don’t meet up with Mammy. That would be hell, all right.’
And then, the memory of a lad tying twine between two trees flitted across Tom’s mind and he felt an urgent need to tell his brother. He didn’t know why – maybe the emotion of the day had got to him – but suddenly it was imperative that Joe knew it all.
‘You are right though’, he said, ‘I will never make Heaven.’
‘And you think I will?’
‘No, Joe, I’m serious,’ Tom said, aware that his heart was thumping in his breast.
‘What is this, Tom?’ Joe said, peering at him and seeing in the light from the moon just how agitated he was. ‘This is just the beer talking, man. You are a bloody saint, you are, and most of the town acknowledge that.’
‘I’m no saint.’
‘Well, not many would put up with Mammy the way you did for bloody years.’
‘Och, sure that was nothing,’ Tom said dismissively. ‘This is something I have thought of telling you for some time and tonight is as good a time as any.’
‘Go on then.’
‘I … I killed a man, Joe,’ said Tom. ‘Years ago.’
Joe stopped dead on the road and turned to face Tom. He felt as if all the blood had drained from his body, and he gave a nervous laugh and said, ‘Come on, Tom, don’t be daft, man. This has got to be the beer talking.’
‘No it isn’t,’ Tom insisted. ‘I was just thirteen at the time.’ Tom went on to explain to his brother exactly what had happened that fateful February day over forty years before.
Joe didn’t speak a word until he’d finished and then he said, ‘I do understand how you felt, Tom. It must have been awful to see Aggie forced from her home that time, and the man get away scot-free.’
‘It was when he started commiserating with Daddy after Mass,’ Tom said. ‘I felt such rage inside me.’
‘But you didn’t want to kill him?’
‘D’you know, Joe, I think I probably did,’ Tom said. ‘I’m a mild-mannered man, too mild, many would say, and never before or since have I felt anger as I did that day. But when I tied the twine, I didn’t intend to kill him. I wanted to hurt him, that was all.’
‘And if he hadn’t died, wouldn’t it have been worse for everyone, as McAllister’s wife told you.’
‘Yes,’ Tom said. ‘She tried to stop me. But afterwards, when it was too late, she helped me and covered it up for me, so she was as involved as me, in a way.’
‘You didn’t kill the man, Tom,’ Joe said. ‘The fall from his horse did that.’
‘That’s splitting hairs, isn’t it, Joe?’ Tom said ruefully. ‘I do know what I have done and that one day I will pay for it, but I will say the load has been lightened considerably by my telling you. And Mammy dying too. God, I haven’t really got to grips with that yet and how different life will be from now on.’
‘Different and better.’
‘Oh, definitely better.’
‘Will you go straight to Birmingham now?’
‘I’d like to,’ Tom said. ‘I have dallied long enough, but we have two cows ready to calve and I doubt you would want to cope with that on your own.’
‘Well, it is many years since I have done it.’
‘I will stay, don’t worry,’ Tom said. ‘I will write to Molly. She lived on the farm and knows about these sorts of things. She will understand I can’t leave just now.’
Molly’s twenty-first birthday came and went with Tom still in Ireland, and though everyone sent cards and all, he felt bad he wasn’t there. But by the first week in March, both calves were a week old, fine and healthy, and by the end of the next week, with the spring planting out of the way too, Tom was ready for the off.
‘I will send a telegram to Molly and will probably go up to the camp first,’ Tom said to Joe. ‘Then I can arrange to see her after work and probably meet this Mark she keeps on about.’
‘Give him the once-over,’ Joe said. ‘See if he is good enough for our Molly.’
‘I intend to,’ Tom said. ‘What that girl needs and deserves in her life is happiness.’
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Joe said.
‘How do you feel about holding the fort for me while I am over in Birmingham?’
‘Grand,’ Joe said. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Tom nodded. ‘I know that you are nearly completely fit again, and Ben will be a fine help to you when he isn’t at school, for all his tender years, but don’t overdo it, for God’s sake. I’ll have to answer to Gloria then.’
Joe grinned. ‘You would that, but don’t worry, she will keep me in check. She is right fond of you, Tom. Can I tell her about this McAllister business?’
‘Of course,’ Tom said. ‘There should be no secrets between a man
and his wife. I envy you, Joe, for you have a fine wife and a son to be proud of.’
‘I know how lucky I am,’ Joe said. ‘When you come as close to losing your life as I did, you don’t take things for granted any more.’
Tom had never been further than Derry station before in the whole of his life and, what’s more, he never had the slightest desire to go further. Much as he longed see Molly again, and meet Kevin too, and check that they were both all right, he didn’t relish the journey.
He admitted this to Nellie when he sent the telegram to tell Molly of his intended arrival the following day.
‘Aren’t you the slightest bit excited?’ Cathy asked.
‘I will be glad enough to see Molly again and meet that young brother of hers,’ Tom said, ‘but you know I am just not the adventurous sort.’
‘Give her our love,’ Nellie said. ‘Have you the letters we wrote packed away safe?’
‘They’re in the case already, along with two decent torches and a whole load of batteries because I know that is one thing hard to get in England at the moment,’ Tom said.
‘I thought they had to be shielded.’
‘Aye, they have, but a bit of muslin tied on with string will be good enough, I think,’ Tom said. ‘Molly will advise me, I’m sure.’
‘And so all that’s left is for us to wish you Godspeed,’ said Nellie.
‘That’s all.
Ben threw his arms around Tom’s neck and hugged him tight, realising suddenly how much he would miss him.
‘Will you come back real quick, Uncle Tom?’
‘I will, Ben,’ Tom promised his nephew. ‘I’ll be back just as soon as can be.’
‘Now let your uncle be on his way,’ Gloria said, pulling Ben back. ‘He can’t afford to miss the train.’
‘He won’t,’ Joe said. ‘I’ll see to that,’ adding with a grin, ‘me and the speedy old Dobbin, of course.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with that horse, I have told you,’ Tom told Joe.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Joe said. ‘He gets there at his own pace and in his own time even if his pace is two steps forward and one back. He hasn’t a hurry bone in his body and if we are not away from here sharpish that train might well go screaming its way to Dun Laoghaire without you. Climb up here now and let’s be off.’
