by Anne Bennett
As they travelled home on the tram, Kate acknowledged to herself that she wanted to get to know her mother better and had a perfect right to do that, but she could also use her mother’s arrival in her life to stave off the visit to Ireland, which she felt she had been coerced into when she wasn’t really herself after that crack on the head.
Even before she had found Helen and heard her remarkable story, she had been less than keen about visiting Ireland, although she knew she would value the peace and quiet of Donegal and she did want to see her parents, as she still thought of them, and her little brother. Her apprehension stemmed from the fact that she didn’t know how she really felt about Tim Munroe, though the fleeting times she thought of him now, prompted usually because of something her mother put in a letter, she felt nothing. Her heart didn’t race, nor did her mouth became unaccountably dry, and her limbs didn’t quiver, but she didn’t know how she would react if they came face to face, and she had no desire to cause any sort of trouble or upset, for not only was Tim a married man now, he also had a wee son.
And how she had envied Tim for that, because she would have loved a child of her own, a part of David. Oh, yes, she would go to Ireland sometime, but not now, when she was still grieving for her husband whom her Mammy had never met and wouldn’t approve of, and when she was coming to terms with finding her real mother after all these years, and the way that would change so many things in her life. She knew Sally and her mother/aunt Philomena would be disappointed, but they would have to get over it.
TWENTY-SIX
The short tram journey home was taken in virtual silence, which Helen was loath to break as she saw that Kate was deep in thought. She was, however, impressed with the house, which she thought very grand. ‘I had a couple of rooms, that was all,’ she said as they walked down the path. ‘Well, I can claim no credit for living here,’ Kate said as she opened the front door, and she explained how it had come about.
‘You girls have suffered so much,’ Helen said. ‘Your men both taken by this dreadful war.’
Kate nodded as she took off her coat and indicated that Helen do the same. ‘And my father taken by the one before,’ she said, leading the way to the kitchen. She filled the kettle and put it on the gas as Helen asked, ‘Do you resent me, Kate, for giving you up?’
‘How could I?’ Kate said. ‘Until today, I had no idea you existed. As far as I was concerned, I had a mother and father who I love and who love me and, though I was intrigued about you for some reason that I haven’t even got straight in my own head, that didn’t go as far as thinking you were my mother. When you told me, my initial feeling was that I didn’t want you to be, that my life was fine the way it was. If there was any resentment at all, it was because you were shaking the foundations of everything I had previously believed to be true. D’you see that?’
‘I see it very well and I am sorry in a way that this has happened,’ Helen said. ‘And I can say that it gladdens my heart to have met you; you don’t know what it means to me.’ She had a blissful look on her face as she spoke, and then she gave a sigh and went on in a quiet voice, ‘And yet, because it makes things harder for you, I would say I wish it had never happened.’
‘Did you know who I was?’
‘When they spoke of our remarkable likeness to one another in the hospital, yes, I knew and I was afraid.’
‘Why afraid?’ Kate said. ‘And how were you so sure? Even if you knew my first name was Katherine, my second name is Burton now, not Munroe.’
‘But you were married,’ Helen said. ‘The nurses who remarked on the resemblance between us called you Mrs Burton.’ She sighed and went on: ‘I don’t know how I knew who you were even without seeing you, I just did. My past was catching up with me and I didn’t mind for me, but I did for you.’
‘And so you ran away?’
‘Yes,’ Helen said. ‘I wasn’t sure you would go on looking for me. I thought if I wasn’t at the hospital, you would probably shrug your shoulders and get on with your life. At least that was what I hoped you’d do.’
‘Well, I didn’t really go looking for you,’ Kate said. ‘The point is, I had to go to the hospital today anyway to have the stitches taken out of my forehead and the nurse spoke about you. She said that you left just after they commented on how similar we were, but even then I wasn’t sure that that was the real reason for you just taking off like that.’
‘It was,’ Helen said. ‘Out of the hospital I felt safer.’
‘Well, I certainly wasn’t going to chase you all over the city,’ Kate said. ‘But I was going to call on some friends who run the hostel in Bevington Road anyway. The steward there, John Taylor, went up to the house when I was injured to tell Sally what had happened and my friend Susie too, so I wanted to thank them. But on the way to the hostel, I went for a look at Freer Road, or what’s left of it, which isn’t much.’
Helen nodded. ‘I went for a look myself, and mooched about a bit to see if I could salvage something from the mound of rubble and debris that had once been my home, but there was nothing. I was just standing there coming to terms with it all and with no idea what to do with myself or where to go, and a copper came up and asked if he could help and he told me that all the homeless were taken to the school hall of the Sacred Heart because it was the nearest, and so that’s where I ended up.’
‘That’s what my friend the Taylors said when I asked where the homeless people had been taken,’ Kate said. She made tea as she spoke and pushed a cup across the kitchen table to Helen and sat down opposite her and went on: ‘I had got to thinking that it was wrong to keep this whole house with just me and Sally in it when we could take at least one homeless person in because we had a spare bedroom. When I reached the hall I nearly didn’t ask about you, but then I thought if I didn’t I would always wonder – who you were and that – and of course I didn’t know if you would even be there. But you were and the rest you know.’
‘And I’m very grateful to you,’ Helen said. ‘Never think I don’t appreciate this, but I really think I cannot stay here.’
‘Why not?’
Helen shook her head. ‘It’s just … It’s not right.’ Her voice was thick with unshed tears and she turned her brimming eyes to Kate and said, ‘You must see, Kate. It could throw up all kinds of problems.’
Kate reached out and took hold of one of Helen’s hands. ‘Drink your tea,’ she said, ‘and stop shaking.’
Helen obediently picked up the cup and sipped at the amber liquid. Kate did not say another word until Helen had drained the cup and put it down on the table; then she said, ‘Please listen to me. I have been denied access to you for twenty-five years. We will never get those years back, and it matters more than I have words to say that I get to know you better and that you find out the kind of person I am. I want you to stay here, Helen, very, very much. It will be a voyage of discovery for both of us. What do you say?’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely sure.’
Helen nodded her head. ‘All right then.’
Kate was on her feet and dragging Helen up too. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘you’ll want to see your room. I must warn you that it’s nothing special,’ she added as she led the way upstairs. ‘Sally and I have been using it as a bit of a glory hole, chucking all sorts of stuff in there, most of it junk that can easily be thrown out.’ She swung the door open as she spoke and Helen gazed in at all the things piled haphazardly on the floor. But she also noted that what she could see of the lino was clean and so were the distempered walls. The window looked out on the modest garden that the shelter virtually filled.
‘Got to get you a blackout curtain or something for that window,’ Kate said. ‘We didn’t bother as it wasn’t used. I just took the bulb out instead. And we’ll have to get a bed and chest of drawers or something.’
‘Don’t worry about a thing,’ Helen said. ‘I’ll soon get it sorted out.’
‘Well, until we get it fixed up, you can have Sally’s roo
m and she will share with me.’
‘I don’t want to put anyone out.’
‘And you won’t,’ Kate assured Helen. ‘Sally loves sharing a room with me. What d’you think of our inside toilet and bathroom?’
‘It’s absolutely wonderful and I know a lot of people are far worse off,’ Helen said. ‘And don’t think you have to buy things for me either,’ she went on as she followed Kate back down the stairs. ‘I have money of my own because over the years I’ve not had that much to spend it on. I mean, I have little ready cash right now, but my shelter bag was recovered and they traced me by the bank book that was zipped in the side pocket, and I have that with me. They said everything else, including the ration books and identity card was ruined. So I will have to go to the council house and tell them and get replacements, I suppose. I haven’t felt up to it yet.’
‘That’s because you left hospital before you were fully better,’ Kate said. ‘And I really think—’
However, whatever Kate was going to say was stopped by Sally letting herself in the front door; she had left work at dinner time as they were going on holiday the following day. She glanced from Kate to Helen and back to Kate as they reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘Golly,’ she cried. ‘You two don’t half—’
‘Don’t say how alike we look,’ Kate said. ‘Because we know, and there is a reason for it. Sally, meet our new lodger, Helen Logue, who also happens to be my mother.’
‘What?’ Sally cried. Her mouth dropped open with astonishment and her eyes seemed to stand out as if they were on stalks. ‘Don’t be daft, Kate.’
‘I’m not, I assure you,’ Kate said. ‘Look, I’ve heard the tale, so let’s go into the kitchen and Helen can tell you while I make us a bite to eat.’
That was agreed on, and so Kate opened a tin of Spam and sliced it to make sandwiches from the dreaded grey national loaf, spread with a minute amount of margarine, and watched Sally’s eyes widen and her face take on a look of astonishment and some distress as the story unfolded. Kate put the plate of sandwiches down and brewed tea for them all as Helen finished speaking. Sally stared at Helen. She had asked few questions, and Kate thought looked near to tears. But when she did speak there was no trace of that in her voice, though there was anger. ‘I just don’t get it,’ she said. ‘Mammy agreed to look after your baby, right?’
‘Yes,’ Helen said. ‘Thinking it to be Michael’s child, they couldn’t do enough for me. We all had a big family conference to decide what was to be done and it was agreed that Philomena should have the child and bring her up as her own. She was desperate for a child, anyway, and I knew she would love her dearly.’
‘That’s the bit I don’t get,’ Sally said. ‘People in Donegal know everything about you. If you had a baby and gave it to Mammy, everyone would get to know about it and we’d get to hear and everyone would know what Kate was and they would call her a fly-blow, a bastard, and she would be known and maybe ostracized because she had no father. And they never forget anything either. It would be passed from one generation to another like a story.’
‘Don’t you think that we didn’t know that too?’ Helen said. ‘Oh, we knew exactly how cute we had to be. I went back to Birmingham and gave in my notice. I knew that the Mountford’s would dismiss me anyway when my pregnancy became obvious. As I said, they were friends of the parish priest and I couldn’t risk them contacting him to tell him I was expecting. Then I went to a hardware shop and bought a curtain ring to do as a wedding ring and got a job in the munitions works where I said I had a husband at the Front.
‘Meanwhile, Philomena tells everyone that at long last she is having a baby, and everyone is delighted for her and she pads herself accordingly as the months pass. In May, a month before the child is due, she comes to stay with me, telling any who ask that I am going to look after her. And, once we were together in this teeming city, where people didn’t know who we were and cared even less, we temporarily swapped identities.’ She looked at Kate and said, ‘You were the most gorgeous baby and I was unprepared for the powerful surge of love I felt for you. And yet I insisted that Philomena hold you first, because it was important that you two bonded so that Philomena would love you as I wanted you loved. Later, she registered you as Katherine Helen Munroe and we went back to Ireland.
‘I hadn’t any plans after the birth, but I had assumed I would have some input, however small, in your growing up, but Philomena vetoed that. I know she wanted you to be all hers, because she thought she would never have a natural child of her own. I think that she was worried that if I was part of your life, you might grow to love me more than her – and she couldn’t have borne that. She never said this, and in fact the arguments she used were powerful ones. She said if I stayed in contact, it might all come out one day that you were the product of violent rape and a bastard into the bargain. How, she asked, could I risk ruining your life in that way?’
‘What of my father? Jim?’ Kate asked. ‘Did he have no say in any of this?’
‘Not really,’ Helen said. ‘He just went along with it. He knew how much Philomena had yearned for a child and I think he felt a little less like a man himself. You were like a heaven-sent opportunity, to have a child he considered of his blood to rear as his own, and that would raise his standing in the community. He would be able to walk with his head held high.’
Kate nodded. ‘He was a lovely father,’ she said. ‘Always kind and scrupulously fair and almost too easy-going.’
‘I can see him doing just as Helen said, can’t you?’ Sally asked Kate. ‘He always gave in to what Mammy wanted.’
‘Well, she wanted you all right,’ Helen said. ‘And she wanted you to herself. To have told the truth about your true father would not have helped either of us, and so I had to agree with Philomena and get out of your life completely. I stayed until the christening, for it would have seemed odd if I hadn’t, and it was a lavish affair. Everyone was so happy, I remember, and I felt as if my heart had been split apart. I left the next day when you were just over two and a half weeks old, and I never cast eyes on you again until I saw you in the school hall today.’
The eyes that Helen fastened on Kate were suddenly very bright, and she began weeping as if her heart was indeed broken. ‘It’s a terribly sad story, isn’t it?’ Sally said in a wobbly voice as Kate put her arms around the weeping Helen, her mother who didn’t feel in the least like her mother, and she felt sorrow and regret close over her. Helen had given up everything for her and she had never been given the opportunity to get to know this woman at all, and neither had Sally or James, and yet she was their auntie. Then Kate realized that they were no longer her brother and sister but her cousins, and that Tim Munroe was not her first cousin, either and if the truth had been told their love need not have been denied all those years ago. But how could Helen have told the truth later? What would it have achieved and how many lives would it have blown apart if she had?
But things were different now. She was grown up and so was Sally. In fact, they were all older and wiser, and while she knew secrets had to be kept from the townsfolk, as to tell all would hurt too many people, she thought it time the family were told the truth. The subterfuge had gone on long enough, she decided, and she must put her own misgivings about going to Ireland aside. It was time for Helen to go back to Donegal and make her peace with her sister, because she was still so desperately sad and unhappy. ‘We were going to Ireland tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Having met you today, I was going to cancel my holiday.’
‘Kate, how can you think of doing that?’ Sally cried. ‘You know that I couldn’t go on my own.’
‘I know, Sally,’ Kate said. ‘But don’t you see? I’m still reeling from the things that have come to light.’
‘But Mammy asked me to go,’ Sally said as tears ran down her cheeks. ‘It’s something I waited years for, and yet I would be afraid to go on my own. Mammy might not let me in the door.’
Helen looked totally perplexed. ‘Why wouldn’t she?’
Sally glanced at Kate as she continued to sob and so Kate told Helen about Sally’s flight to England and the reason for it, and that she had taken the egg money because she had never been given money of her own. ‘And I was so sorry afterwards,’ Sally cried, choking back the tears. ‘I paid the money back, every penny, and begged her forgiveness, but she disowned me.’
‘When was this?’
‘Nineteen thirty-eight,’ Kate said.
‘And Philomena kept to that all this time?’
Both girls nodded and Sally went on: ‘I wrote letters over and over and sent presents and everything. When David died and Kate was so upset, I wrote and told Mammy and got someone else to address the envelope so that she would open the letter.’
Helen was shaking her head. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that Philomena would ever behave that way. I have never thought her harsh.’
‘I think she was pretty harsh with you too,’ Kate said. ‘And ultimately us too, because as well as being my mother, you are Sally and James’s aunt, and yet you don’t know them either. I think it’s time to set the record straight. I will go to Ireland tomorrow as planned, but I would really like it if you could come with us.’
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ Helen said.
‘Yes, you could, Helen,’ Kate said. ‘And I think you should stop apologizing. You have nothing to be so ashamed of that you have to do penance all the days of your life.’
‘What do you mean?’ Helen said. ‘I had a baby out of wedlock.’
‘Oh, yes, and haven’t you paid handsomely for that one slip?’ Kate said. ‘It’s one that could easily happen to any of us when we are in love, especially when in your case you were comforting your young lover, who was upset hearing of the death of so many comrades and friends. But your soldier didn’t desert you; he urged you to go to Ireland to see your sister and get permission to marry. And that is what you would have done if you hadn’t been attacked and near raped by Michael. And I know Mammy would have given her permission if you’d told her that your lovemaking might result in pregnancy. She’d not have wanted that disgrace tainting her family,’ Kate reasoned. ‘I don’t blame you for what you did, and though I had a happy childhood, with loving parents, though Mammy could be strict at times, you should never have been banished totally from my life – it wasn’t fair for either of us.’
