by Anne Bennett
Bridie shook her head, laughing, as Tom took her hand and like children they danced and pranced to the accordion and fiddle players assembled by the now closed Rag Market, singing the words to the old songs like everyone else around them.
‘D’you like cockles and whelks?’ Tom asked as the strains of the Sally Army brass band, marching their way from the Citadel, were heard in the distance. ‘I’ve developed a taste for them since living here.’
‘I’ve never tried them,’ Bridie admitted. Tom insisted she had a large dish, which he covered liberally in vinegar.
‘Well d’you like them?’ he demanded when Bridie had sampled just a few, and though she tried valiantly to cover her distaste by nodding vigorously, he wasn’t fooled. ‘Not everyone feels the way I do about these,’ he said, taking Bridie’s dish and tipping it into his own. ‘“Waste not, want not,” my mother used to say.’
‘You don’t mind me not liking them?’ Bridie said.
‘Why should I?’ Tom asked. ‘One man’s meat and all that.’ And then he bent down and whispered, ‘Would you rather have a baked potato?’
‘I think so,’ Bridie whispered back, and grabbing her hand again, Tom dragged her over to the baked potato stand. The potato was at first too hot to handle and Bridie had to jiggle it from hand to hand. When she eventually bit through the soft, slightly smoky tasting skin into the creamy potato beneath, she knew she preferred it above seafood, and munched happily as the Sally Army band marched into the Bull Ring playing and singing ‘Jerusalem’ very loudly.
‘They do marvellous work,’ Tom said to Bridie. ‘They’re thought well of down at the Mission.’
Bridie often found Tom’s views strange. She’d been brought up to believe that the Roman Catholic Church was the one true Church, founded by Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ himself. Every other religion was false and the people worshipping them destined for Hell. Despite the McCarthys’ relative proximity to the border separating the Free State from the six British-ruled counties, she’d met few people from the Protestant faith until she came to England. She knew though that she was forbidden to take part in any service conducted by them, or even enter a non-Catholic church.
Tom, however, despite his years in the Seminary, had a far more liberal outlook. He worked with many religious groups and often recounted the lively debates they had about their varied viewpoints and now here he was saying the Salvation Army did good work. ‘Why the long face, sweetheart?’ he asked as he finished the last of his whelks and licked his fingers.
‘I haven’t got a long face,’ Bridie protested. ‘I’m just confused about what you said about the Salvation Army, you being a Catholic and all.’
‘Sweetheart, we’re on the same side,’ Tom said. ‘The people we help have their own devil to fight. It’s called extreme poverty and if we can help more people more effectively by banding together then why not? In the end, whichever way we chose to do it, we’re worshipping the same God.’
It was a shocking statement, almost blasphemous. But as Bridie watched the earnest faces of the men and women of all ages from the Sally Army singing and playing their hearts out, she began to see what Tom meant.
They stayed to the end, singing the hymns they recognised and listening to those they didn’t, and Bridie felt marvellous to be a part of it, all with solid, dependable, lovely Tom beside her. Eventually, the music drew to a close and Bridie saw a group of down-and-outs moving forward. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked.
‘They take the homeless over to the Citadel for soup and bread,’ Tom replied. ‘They run hostels too and will try and find a bed for the old or those they think are ill. Like I said, they do great work.’
Bridie watched the old, shuffling men and even women falling into line behind their smartly dressed benefactors. They were the sort of people most would cross the road to avoid. They were ragged and dirty and probably smelled, yet they were welcomed warmly.
Tom and Bridie walked home, hand in hand through the dark streets, and Tom was happier than he’d been in a long time because he knew he was at last making headway with Bridie. He’d known when he’d listened to what had happened to her that he’d have to have immense patience and he had. He’d never press her, but he felt that night their relationship had moved forward a pace or two.
He knew he wanted Bridie as part of his life and he knew too there would be no opposition from her aunt and uncle or her sister and her husband. They all liked him and whenever he called at Ellen’s house for Bridie he was welcomed in and tea and a bite often almost forced upon him. In fact, it was difficult to leave sometimes. But he never showed impatience, partly because he’d become fond of Ellen and respectful of Sam, but also because he knew that if he wished to marry Bridie before her twenty-first birthday, Ellen might have great influence persuading Bridie’s parents to agree.
Bridie hadn’t let herself think that far ahead. All she knew was that she was walking on a balmy spring evening, holding hands with the loveliest man in the world and going back to a home where she was loved. She had a supportive sister just around the corner and a job she enjoyed where she’d begun eventually to make friends. What more could she want?
She knew though what she did want and that was a letter from her mother. Tom Cassidy was fast becoming the most important person in her life and she’d written to her parents telling them all about him. But, like all the other letters, there had been no reply.
Terry had replied when he’d received a similar letter from Bridie. He’d said if Tom Cassidy was a good man and they loved each other then she should hang on to him. He was marrying his Jo in May and hoped for a cluster of children before too long and wished Bridie all the best.
Ellen could see that though Bridie had been cheered by her brother’s letter, her mother’s lack of response troubled her. So Ellen wrote her own letter, extolling Tom’s virtues and said Bridie could look further and fare worse. But Sarah’s reply stunned her, for she said Bridie was no longer their daughter and they had no interest in what she did or who she’d met.
‘The woman’s inhuman,’ Ellen said to Mary when they were alone. ‘I know Bridie running away would be hard to take, and thank God they never knew the real reason for it, but she can’t disown her like this. Blood, after all, is thicker than water.’
Bridie was unaware of Ellen’s intervention. Each Sunday, she wrote a letter to her parents but she had given up the idea of ever getting any kind of response. And so, that night walking back home with Tom, she was almost content.
Tom felt it too and also a softening in Bridie. That night for the first time, before her aunt’s darkened house, he drew Bridie towards him and bent his head to give her a chaste kiss. He felt her stiffen in his arms, but he held her tighter and then, as his lips touched hers, she sprang back with a cry of alarm, threw her hand up and delivered a ringing slap across his left cheek.
When he’d held her tight against him, she’d imagined she was back in the little wood in Ireland, struggling with Uncle Francis and when Tom kissed her, she saw Francis’s face and Francis’s thick lips and she’d reacted in fright and panic.
But it wasn’t Francis she’d hit, it was her dear, darling Tom. In the dim light of the street lamp, she saw the crimson stain of a handprint across his face and was mortified by what she’d done. ‘Oh God! Oh God, Tom, I’m sorry! So very, very sorry!’ she cried as tears spurted from her eyes.
She stood up on tiptoes and traced gentle fingers around the mark. ‘I … I don’t know what came over me.’
Tom removed her hand gently from his face and kissed her fingers. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want you to worry about it.’
‘But …’
‘But nothing, Bridie. You need time to forget what happened to you and learn to trust me. You may need a lot of time, but it will come. I’m a very patient man. Don’t worry.’
‘You won’t tire of me?’
‘Tire of you, not at all,’ Tom said. He held both her hands close to his face as
he said. ‘I don’t know if you realise this, but I love you, Bridie McCarthy.’
‘Do you?’
‘I do truly,’ Tom said. ‘These are just words I know, but in time I’ll show you how much I mean them. And now, Bridie here’s four more important words. Will you marry me?’
Tom hadn’t meant to ask Bridie to marry him so soon, but the moment had just seemed right.
He could see Bridie was stunned. She was just staring at him, as if she couldn’t believe her ears. And she couldn’t. ‘D’you … D’you mean it?’ she said at last.
‘I do.’
‘Oh. Then the answer is yes, Tom. Yes. Yes. Yes,’ and Bridie’s arms went voluntarily around his neck and this time when his lips met hers she didn’t push him away.
But Tom knew Bridie still had a long way to go and so he didn’t kiss her properly or for very long. And when he felt his own body stirring with desire for her, he moved away slightly, not wishing to frighten her to death altogether. ‘There are practicalities to consider,’ he said. ‘Before anything else you will need permission from your parents for you’re only nineteen.’
Bridie wondered how she’d get permission to do anything from parents who refused to acknowledge her, but said nothing. ‘In the normal way of things I should ask your father’s permission,’ Tom said, a small frown appearing on his forehead. ‘But in this case …’
‘Ask Uncle Sam,’ Bridie suggested. ‘That’s if you want to do it properly, but you know he won’t say no. He likes you. They both do.’
Tom didn’t forsee any problems there. ‘And I’ll have to tell my parents too,’ he said.
And then a thought occurred to Bridie. ‘Will they, your parents, expect you to go home and run the farm?’ she asked. ‘Now you’re not to be a priest.’
‘Would you mind being a farmer’s wife?’ Tom asked.
Bridie gave a shiver of distaste. How she would hate living just a few miles from her parents. She knew she would feel more than uncomfortable. And then, there was Francis. How in God’s name would she ever face him again?
But then she looked at the dear, dear man before her and knew if he left her, her life would have no meaning and so she said, ‘Tom, I would go with you to the gates of Hell and back.’
‘Oh my darling love,’ Tom said and his kiss was spontaneous and very, very sweet. ‘I know how hard it would be for you to move back, but that will be unnecessary.’
‘Oh.’
‘My sister is getting married,’ he told Bridie. ‘She’s the eldest, Agnes, and well over thirty. No one thought of it at all. The chap she’s marrying is a man called Tony Canley and the Canleys have a farm on the borders of Antrim. But they had three sons and a fair few girls too and Tony is the third son. He’d been brought up to farming and yet the chance of him ever running his own farm is slim. Agnes wrote and asked me if I had any intention of coming back ever. I told her no and her and Tony could have the place and welcome to it.’
‘Wasn’t that a wrench for you?’
‘Och, not at all,’ Tom assured her. ‘I haven’t really been on the farm since I was twelve. I don’t know that I could take to it again. And the place … It’s so dead. Remember, first I was in Liverpool and now Birmingham. I like the city life and my work at the Mission and I love you and want you in my life, by my side, bearing my children.’
‘And I want it too,’ Bridie said. ‘Oh, Tom more than anything in the world I want that. I want to shout it from the rooftops that I love you so, but I can’t even tell my aunt and uncle until tomorrow, because all the lights are out, so they must be in bed.’
‘Never mind, my love,’ Tom said. ‘We have a lifetime before us. Now I must save to buy you an engagement ring.’
‘I want no engagement ring,’ Bridie said firmly, for she knew the price of them. ‘Your word is better than any engagement ring. I’ll be proud to wear your wedding ring. It’s the only one I need or want.’
‘Oh, Bridie, I love you so.’
‘And I love you, Tom. I’m sure of it now,’ Bridie said and she stood again on tiptoe and placed her lips on Tom’s.
There was a near explosion in Tom at Bridie’s nearness, the feel of her arms around him, their lips touching and though he longed to go further, it was neither the time nor the place and so he reluctantly pulled away and bade Bridie goodnight.
Bridie went inside, closed the door and leaned against it. Her whole face was aglow, her eyes sparkling and she felt as if she was walking on air. She was in love and with a wonderful, wonderful man and now they were to be married. After all that had happened, God had given her another chance. And please God, she’d soon have a child conceived in love that she and Tom would take pleasure in rearing.
She didn’t know how she reached the attic, for she had no recollection of mounting the stairs, but there she was. She told herself to try to sleep for then the morning would soon come and she could share her news with people who’d welcome it, but she lay for hours, wide-eyed, too excited and elated to sleep and went over every minute of that wonderful, wonderful evening.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jimmy McCarthy, with the milking and breakfast over, leaned over the farm gate and took a long drag on his glowing pipe. Mid-May, he thought, and the countryside had never looked better. He should have been a contented man: the spring planting was done and the lambs had all been born fine and healthy. There was plenty of grazing for the sheep and cattle in the green fields and hillside pastures and the hay for the winter feed was already ripening in the sun. Everywhere he looked he saw evidence of life, everything growing and new and even the hedgerows a riot of colour.
Life should have been good for Jimmy McCarthy. But there was an ache in his heart that had developed that December day he had come running to the house, having heard Sarah’s anguished cry. He had seen her holding a letter in her trembling fingers, her face chalk-white. His little lass, the light of his life, his workmate, the one he’d thought would always be there, or at least close to ease his twilight years, had run away.
She’d not just left like the others had, having discussed it and made plans, she’d fled in the dead of night as if she couldn’t bear to live with them a minute longer. He blamed himself; Sarah had been right, the child couldn’t cope on her own, and he’d not listened. If only she’d told him, confided in him, he would have got help in.
He hadn’t realised himself the amount of work she did. In the early days, if it hadn’t been for Francis and his sons Frank and Declan, he’d never have got through at all. Now that he had Willie things were easier, especially as Sarah had at last agreed to have his wife Beattie in to help her in the house. Sarah had kicked up wicked about that at first. Jimmy knew it was hard on her, seeing another woman not even kith or kin to help her in the kitchen. It had caused a bitterness towards Bridie that had never eased, for though the woman did her best, she was still a stranger. Beattie could also talk the hind leg off a donkey, but in comparison, there was little conversation to be had from Willie at all. Jimmy gave a sigh. He missed the lively chatter of his daughter and wished he could at least find some way of healing the breach between her and her mother.
Every Tuesday, a letter came from her, as regular as clockwork, and that’s what Jimmy was waiting for that morning, though Sarah would barely ever look at it and certainly wouldn’t reply. Jimmy often thought of writing a wee note himself, but he hadn’t much of a hand for writing. Sarah had always dealt with that kind of thing and anyway, he knew she’d fly into a fine temper if she’d found out about it.
Abel Maloney, the postman, knew all about Bridie McCarthy and what she’d done, indeed the whole of the town and most of the county had heard something of it. It wasn’t that she’d left: few could say that her workload was easy, though there was something about duty to parents. Didn’t the Bible itself charge children to honour their father and mother? No one could argue reasonably that sneaking away in the middle of the night was an honour to anyone.
And yet the child wrote home
every week. Abel was quick to tell people that, just as the postmistress was just as speedy at telling those interested that the McCarthys never wrote back. They wrote many letters to America, to Seamus and Johnnie and Terry, and to Ellen and Mary in Birmingham, but she handled no letter addressed to Bridie McCarthy. Now, you could make what you like of that, but she knew what she knew.
Some townsfolk thought it served the girl right, that any girl who’d run out on her parents didn’t deserve to be considered a daughter. Other more charitable souls thought it a shame that Bridie wasn’t forgiven.
Abel was of the latter. He felt sorry delivering Bridie’s letter every week, knowing there was little hope of it being answered and, as he handed the letter to Jimmy, he said, ‘Here y’are then. Fine correspondent altogether, your Bridie is.’
‘Aye,’ Jimmy said sadly, taking the letter from Abel’s hand. ‘She is that all right.’
‘All right, is she?’
‘Aye. Aye. She’s grand.’
‘Good, good, glad to hear it.’ Still Abel lingered, anxious to hear any gossip which could be speculated over for weeks. ‘She’s got a job there then?’
Without being rude, Jimmy couldn’t refuse to reply to a question and run down the lane to rip open the envelope and read Bridie’s letter as he longed to. He knew where Bridie worked, he had virtually memorised every word she wrote.
‘Aye,’ he told Abel. ‘She has a grand job in a big store. A place called Woolworths. It sells everything for sixpence, so Bridie tells us.’
‘Well, would you credit that?’ Abel said. ‘Sixpence, is it?’
Jimmy knew that that information would be all over town and county by the next morning. ‘It’s what she said,’ he declared. ‘And now I must be off. A farm doesn’t run itself.’
‘No indeed,’ Abel said, pleased with the information he’d extracted.
But had he been in the farmhouse later, he’d have been far more interested in the information Bridie had to give her parents.
