by Anne Bennett
Wouldn’t she have given her right arm to have Tom beside her this minute? But the memories of Tom’s few days with her after the children’s presumed death disturbed her. She’d pushed Tom away instead of drawing him to her so they could take comfort from one another. She’d make it up to him, though. She’d write a letter as soon as possible and tell him how much she loved and missed him, before telling him of the children’s survival.
But that was for later. This was now and Rosalyn was looking at her with wary, anxious eyes, awaiting her response. Bridie knew she had to lie and make it seem as if she’d already made plans for the Christmas period and say it in such a way that Rosalyn would believe it. ‘Well, that’s just grand,’ she said to her cousin. ‘For I’ve already made arrangements to help out at the hospital. I thought it would help Jay too to have one of his own beside him. It will be the first of many Christmases without his mother. I know my parents will make it special for Mickey, but I’d not like Jay to be on his own.’
In fact, Bridie had made no such arrangements. Before Rosalyn’s arrival, she’d viewed the Christmas with dread. She’d been determined that she wouldn’t take part in the festivities, but stay in bed in her dreary room and let the season go on without her. Now, she saw she could do as she’d claimed and lend a hand at the hospital. They were always glad of help, especially at holiday times when there was less staff in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Bridie went to visit Jay in hospital early the next day after Rosalyn had left. They’d told him all that had transpired at the orphanage the day after the visit, playing it down so that he wouldn’t get too upset. But it was obvious he’d been lying in bed thinking about it because his first question to her was, ‘Why didn’t Katie and Liam say who they was in the beginning? Then they’d have found you, like, wouldn’t they, and you wouldn’t have been so sad?’
‘They were in shock and couldn’t speak, Jay. That was part of the sickness,’ Bridie said.
‘You mean they was sick in the head?’ Jay asked.
‘In a way.’
‘And they still are?’
‘Aye,’ Bridie said with a sigh. ‘They’re still sick.’
‘Daint they even speak to you?’
‘I wasn’t allowed to see them.’
‘Why not?’
Bridie shrugged, and Jay saw her eyes glistening with unshed tears and heard the catch in her voice as she replied, ‘They said … the doctor said it would upset them too much.’
That was daft, anyone would know it was daft and yet to say so would only upset Bridie further and that was the last thing he wanted to do. Besides, he told himself, at least Katie and Liam are alive and that had to be better than being dead. However sick they were, they’d recover in time.
And so he said nothing more about the children and instead revealed proudly, ‘They’re dead pleased about my arm, by the way. They say I might have the plaster off in the New Year, then I can have crutches and get about a bit more.’
Bridie knew being still didn’t sit well on Jay’s shoulders and so she was pleased.
‘When that happens, I can go to Ireland to my grandma and granddad’s,’ Jay told her eagerly. ‘You’ll take me, Auntie Bridie, won’t you?’
‘Aye, of course I will,’ Bridie assured him. ‘As soon as the hospital say you are fit to travel. I promised your daddy and it’s what your mammy wanted too.’
Jay didn’t want to dwell on his mother. He still wept about if he thought about her too much. He decided to steer the conversation around to Ireland. ‘I can’t wait to see them all again on the farm,’ he said. ‘I bet our Mickey’s getting dead spoilt. He needs me there to knock him into touch.’
Bridie laughed. ‘You and whose army?’ she said. ‘He’ll soon have you off those crutches if you start throwing your weight around.’
‘Huh,’ Jay said with a grin. ‘Like to see him try.’
‘What can you remember about the farm and all?’ Bridie asked. ‘Not much I expect. You were quite small last time you were over.’
But Jay surprised her, for he remembered a great deal and she recalled how he used to trail after her father as she’d done as a small child.
‘I loved that place,’ Jay said now with a sigh. ‘I used to ask to go every year. I’m going to live somewhere like that when I grow up.’
‘Who knows where any of us will be by that time,’ Bridie said. ‘The war will be over certainly and your daddy and Tom back home and, please God, the world will be a better, more peaceful place altogether.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘I have to believe it, otherwise all those who died did so in vain.’
‘I know,’ Jay said glumly.
‘Come on, cheer up,’ Bridie said, wanting to lift his despondency. ‘It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow. For one day at least let’s believe in ‘Peace and goodwill to all men.”
‘Even Germans?’
‘Even them at Christmas,’ Bridie said with a smile. ‘The angels didn’t make exceptions.’
‘All right,’ Jay said. ‘When you come over to the hospital, I’ll be all sweetness and light.’
He was incredibly grateful to Bridie for offering to help out at the hospital on Christmas Day and Boxing Day and the nurses jumped at the chance of an extra pair of hands. Jay knew they worked hard and would do their best to make the day special, particularly for the younger patients, and they had already made the ward looked very festive indeed. And yet he didn’t want to spend Christmas alone just with the nurses. He knew it would be a time when he would remember his mother and he would be frightened of crying in front of everybody and spoiling their day too. He had to remember that some kids had more to put up with than he had.
When his aunt left that night he lay back on his bed and thought how good she had been with him. He didn’t know if he’d have coped so well if she hadn’t been to see him as often as she had. It was a pity, he thought, that she wasn’t really happy and that having found her children alive and well, after thinking them dead for a month, they were still being kept apart. He shut his eyes tight and prayed earnestly that things might work out well for his aunt – for all of them – in the New Year.
On the way home, fired with enthusiasm, Bridie bought a lot of cleaning materials, plus her rations from the grocery shop near the Mission where she’d eventually registered. She arrived in at the attic out of breath, her arms nearly pulled out of their sockets, and shut the door behind her with a snap. She looked about the room: the whole place needed painting and repapering and although she wouldn’t be able to do that, she could give it a thorough going over. She felt ashamed of the way she’d let it go.
She made herself a cup of tea and then set to work with a will, boiling kettle upon kettle of water, which she had to fetch in buckets from the tap on the landing below. She didn’t stop until the place looked brighter and fresher and the musty smell had been overridden by one of polish and cleaning fluid.
She made herself a Spam sandwich and looked around again, wondering how she could make the place more suitable for her two children if she could get nothing better. With the furniture rearranged, she could possibly squeeze another bed in – they could sleep together while they were small – but would they deem that satisfactory enough? She didn’t know.
She got up and fingered the flimsy curtains at the two windows and her fingers came away grubby, but she was afraid to wash them – it was probably the dirt holding them together. Maybe she could make new ones now she’d had Tom’s pay. She remembered the bright curtains she’d made for the house in Grant Street and the cushion covers she’d made to match with the remnants left over.
It seemed a lifetime ago. And there wasn’t the incentive now when the windows had to be shuttered for hours on end, sometimes from the afternoon if the day was dark enough to need the lights on. Anyway, she couldn’t see the authorities or anyone else being swayed in their decision by bright curtains alone.
After she’d eaten, she seemed fille
d with energy again, unable to sit still, and so she began to wash the clothes Rosalyn had left in a heap in the corner of the kitchenette, draping them around the room to dry them off. Tomorrow, she promised herself, she would get something to hang the clothes properly. Then she’d go along to the Mission hall and look through the clothes bins – she couldn’t wear Rosalyn’s clothes for ever and dared not embarrass Jay by turning up at the hospital on Christmas Day in rags.
She had a wonderful day at the Bull Ring and found a collapsible clotheshorse in the Rag Market. She then queued for two hours for one orange and a banana, which she would take to Jay in the morning. She’d already bought him a couple of comics and a copy of the book Kidnapped. Jay was no keener on reading than he ever had been, but it would be some time before his leg was healed enough to give him full mobility. Anyway, she hoped the adventure story would appeal to him because there was precious little else in the shops to buy.
She called into the Mission hall on the way home. Father Flynn was delighted that she’d found the children alive, but incensed that they couldn’t be returned to her. ‘They explained that they’re still ill,’ Bridie said.
‘And wouldn’t any wee child be ill separated from its mother?’ Father Flynn said. ‘By rights they should have been taken to the Roman Catholic Home, Father Hudson’s in Coleshill.’
‘They didn’t know they were Catholics, nor anything about them, not even their names until I called,’ Bridie said. ‘They’ve not spoken, you see. They say they are traumatised, in shock.’
‘After Christmas is over I will try my hardest to find somewhere more suitable to live and then, if Katie and Liam are better, they might be returned to me. Until then I’ve told everyone to address their letters here. Is that all right?’
‘Of course it’s all right, my dear,’ the priest said. ‘And I’m glad you said that for I have some here for you delivered this very day and I might easily have forgotten to give them to you. I have a memory like a sieve these days.’
Tom had sent another pay cheque, together with a card and a little packet, and her mother a card which had a note inside saying how well Mickey had settled down and asking for news. There was another from Terry with a twenty-dollar bill and a note urging her to buy something for herself to cheer her up.
‘If only it were that easy,’ Bridie said, with a rueful glance at the priest. ‘I’ll have to write to him and the others too and tell them about the children being found alive. Mammy wrote and told them the tragic news of that night. They all sent cards – condolence cards as well as Mass cards. Tom read them out to me, but I couldn’t look at them.’
‘Aye indeed,’ Father Flynn said. ‘By the way, do you want to look in the clothes bins while you’re here?’
‘I intended to,’ Bridie said. ‘But I honestly don’t think I could carry much more.’ She eyed the bags doubtfully and the clotheshorse tied with a small piece of string.
‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I’ll help you carry them back. Come on, my dear, let’s find you something to wear for the festive season.’
Bridie was grateful to the priest helping her and yet she was embarrassed of her attic room, for all it was now clean. ‘Sorry about the clothes draped everywhere, Father,’ she said, snatching up the damp things. ‘I had nowhere to put them to dry, you see, that’s why I bought the clotheshorse.’
‘Don’t worry, my dear,’ Father Flynn said. ‘I’m not here to inspect or judge you.’
But he knew with a sinking heart that others would and doubted Bridie would ever have her children returned to her while she lived there. He communicated none of these thoughts to Bridie, however, for in his opinion she had enough on her plate already.
There was no festive cheer in the place at all, bar the three cards which she had placed on the mantelpiece near the one Rosalyn had given her before she’d left. He thought of the people at the Mission and of the children so excited at the thought of Christmas. They’d spent ages festooning the place with paper chains they’d made and he’d unearthed a tree from pre-war days that they’d decorated with all manner of baubles.
But in this cold bare room there was no sign of Christmas. Thank God, Father Flynn thought, Bridie was spending two days at the hospital; spending any length of time in that drab attic would depress anyone.
The next day, after Mass, Bridie went straight to the hospital. Under her coat she wore a woollen costume in deep lilac which had been left in the clothes box for it would fit no one else. Fashionable black boots over her dainty feet covered up her heavy duty lisle stockings. At her neck she’d fastened the brooch which was Tom’s present to her, bought because the bronze stone in the centre had reminded him of the colour of her hair, he’d explained in the letter.
Jay was overjoyed to see her, and so moved by the orange, banana and book that he felt tears well up in his eyes. Bridie found Father Christmas had already been around the wards with a present for each child, donated by American children, and Jay had received a paint box, brushes and a sketch pad.
Bridie had a wonderful Christmas Day and Boxing Day in the hospital and she was honoured to be part of it. She’d helped wherever help was needed, awed by the stoical courage and cheerfulness she saw in people, and especially in the children badly injured, some of whom had lost all those dear to them. It helped put her own life in perspective and she decided from that point to concentrate on those she had left to her, primarily Mary’s sons and her own children, her dear husband Tom and brother-in-law Eddie, and her parents. She was well blessed.
Having decided that in her mind, she shelved her problems for the next two days and threw herself into the festivities planned with such enthusiasm that one young nurse remarked, after seeing her organise a children’s game, ‘You’re a natural, you are. Don’t suppose you could come on a regular basis?’
She could, but at that time all Bridie’s thoughts and energies were concentrated on Katie and Liam and getting them home where they belonged and so she had to shake her head regretfully.
She returned to her attic room on the evening of 27th December and found a letter from Tom on the mat. She’d intended to write to both him and Eddie that night before she went to bed but was pleased to find another letter from him had arrived before she had the chance to do so.
My dear, dear Bridie
What wonderful, marvellous news. You’re right – I can scarcely believe it. People at the camp say I’m going around with a permanent smile on my face, like a dog with two tails, but I can’t help but be overjoyed. I know how hard everything has been for you – you’ve had to bear the brunt of it all.
There are not words enough to tell you how much I love you and how I long to be with you this minute and hold you and our children in my arms and never let anything bad happen to any of you again.
All I can do though is fight this damned war. Tell the children I love them and write and give me news of them when you can.
My love now and always,
Tom
Bridie sat with the letter in her hand as the tears seeped from her eyes and she put her head down on the table and let the sobs overtake her. Oh God, she thought, he’d like to hold his children, well so would I.
She was too sad after she’d finished weeping to write to either Tom or Eddie, feeling sure that Tom at least would pick up on her mood. She couldn’t run the risk of him fretting. This was something she had to deal with, without involving Tom at all. She was glad though that Rosalyn would be joining her again the next day and knew she would give her all the support she could.
By the time Rosalyn arrived, Bridie had all her clothes ironed and folded, ready to pack, and a stiffer resolve to accompany her to the orphanage. How dare anyone dictate to her when she would see her children!
That night, though, she cowered with Rosalyn in a public shelter as a raid pummelled the city and wondered if she’d dared bring the children back to this danger. Maybe they were better where they were for now. But in any case she should be allowed to see the
m. She ached for the sight and sound of them and the chance to hold them close against her.
‘I don’t think I’d bring the children back to this sort of thing, even if I was permitted,’ she told Rosalyn. ‘If I did and anything else happened to them, I’d never forgive myself. Peggy McKenna would have had her way at last.’
‘Peggy McKenna?’ Rosalyn said and, unaware of the hornet’s nest she had disturbed, went on unperturbed. ‘Wasn’t she the eldest daughter of the Maguires? Her husband was in a bit of bother after the partition of Ireland, wasn’t he?’
Bridie confused, tried to parry Rosalyn’s questions. ‘I don’t know, I can’t remember.’
‘You must, Bridie. She was older than us, even older than your Mary, but it was the talk of the place when she just upped and left one day, and her in line for the farm and all,’ Rosalyn said. ‘Then the Garda went after them – you must remember that – and then the army, and everyone was saying someone had tipped the Maguires the wink and good luck to them, whoever they were.’
‘I was but a child, Rosalyn.’
‘I was only a year older and I remember it,’ Rosalyn protested. ‘Mary told me one time when she was home that she’d ended up living near her in Birmingham and her name was McKenna now. You even mentioned her yourself after you were at Mary’s that first time. Why did you say she’d get her way at last?’
Bridie looked around the shelter. The ‘all clear’ had sounded and people were streaming out, but still Rosalyn and Bridie sat facing each other.
‘Not now,’ Bridie said, but Rosalyn knew if she left it there, Bridie would never speak and she knew what she had to say was worth hearing.
