by Anne Bennett
So many conflicting thoughts filled Bridie’s head, but the uppermost one was that she must do nothing to make life even harder for her children so that when Dr Havering said, ‘Come, come now, Mrs Cassidy, as I’ve said before leave it to the professionals. Believe me, it will be in the children’s best interests in the end,’ she found herself not only standing up, but actually shaking the man’s hand.
It was as the front door closed behind her that she felt angry. Just how feeble was she? However professional these people were, did they love her children like she did? Every time she thought of them, she felt the pain of loss, her arms ached for the feel of them and her heart felt as heavy as lead. She was only half a person without them.
There was no access to the orphanage from the front without being seen and Bridie knew, at that moment, she was probably being watched by Dr Havering to see that she actually walked up the gravel path and out of the gate.
Once there, though, she stood and pondered. The house was in its own grounds, but those grounds must end somewhere: abutting farmland maybe, onto a lane, or perhaps the outlying houses of the village. Somewhere.
She began to skirt the hall and at the end of a lane she found what she was looking for, enclosed by a chain link fence with a large notice claiming that ‘Trespassers would be prosecuted’. That didn’t worry Bridie; she didn’t want to break in, just look, and so she followed the fence around.
Eventually she came to a grassy hill. Above it on a Tarmacked yard, boys rushed about playing football, all dressed in blue jerseys, short blue trousers, long grey socks and black boots. Bridie shivered inside her coat and wondered why none of the children had one on themselves. People said children didn’t feel the cold but Bridie knew that was rubbish. She’d felt the cold all right when she was younger. All the boys were much bigger than Liam and Bridie assumed the little one’s playing area would probably be nearer the house.
There was a brick wall cutting the playground in half further on and on the other side of this were the girls from the orphanage, dressed similarly to the boys in blue jerseys, skirts, grey socks and black boots. They all looked so alike, Bridie wondered if she’d recognise Katie even if she was there.
But she did. She stuck out like a sore thumb. Some of the girls were skipping or hopping, or playing with balls, or participating in a variation of tag. Katie just stood there. No one went near her. She was totally alone. She was so still she might have been a statue and looked as if she’d stood for hours in the raw cold. Bridie’s heart ached for her child, who was exuding unhappiness and confusion. She hadn’t meant to speak – she just wanted to catch sight of them – but Bridie’s lips formed the word ‘Katie’.
It was so softly said, yet the child heard it and swung around instantly. For a second, their eyes met. Bridie asked herself afterwards what she’d expected: that Katie rush towards her with an exclamation of delight? Probably. What she didn’t expect was for Katie to open her mouth and let out a piercing scream and another and another.
It stopped the children’s games. Most screams would do that but for that sound to come from the silent Katie made it even more interesting. Nurses and attendants came running from the house and neither they nor the children saw the figure tear herself away from the child screaming at the sight of her, tears streaming down her face.
But Katie hadn’t screamed at the sight of her mother; she’d screamed because she knew it couldn’t be her mother and it was in her imagination. If her mother was there, wouldn’t she take her and Liam away from this place? When she had looked again there was no one there. And so she had screamed and went on screaming until she fell to the floor in a faint. The doctor pushed his way through the cluster of children grouped around the child lying on the ground. ‘Come away! Come away!’ he said crossly. ‘Nurse, do something with these gawping children.’
The children were shooed from the scene and then he picked up the inert child and took her to the infirmary. Leaving her in the nurses’ care he went into his office and dialled the number for Moneyhall.
Bridie said nothing about visiting the orphanage. She couldn’t bring it to her own mind without thinking of the reaction she’d evoked in her own child and she felt she couldn’t tell that to anyone. She told Jay, when he asked, that the children were coming along fine now and would probably be leaving the place soon. Had Jay not been so excited about leaving hospital himself, he’d have realised she was lying.
She decided, for Jay’s sake, that she would try and put her worries and frustrations about her own children on hold for the time it took to take him home and settle him in. She wouldn’t let her sadness intrude on what she was sure would be a traumatic time for him.
It was very emotional time that day in mid-February when Jay said goodbye to the nurses and doctors who’d cared for him for so many weeks. The doctors were content to shake him by the hand, but many of the nurses gave him a hug and one pressed a comic into his hand; two even gave him a bar of chocolate, scarce since rationing. He passed the things to Bridie so that he could use his crutches to get to the waiting taxi, spurning the wheelchair he was offered.
Bridie looked across as Jay eased himself along the taxi seat. ‘All right?’
‘Sort of,’ Jay said. ‘I’m all messed up inside. I mean I really wanted to leave the hospital – I’ve been thinking about it, dreaming about it for weeks and now, but …’ He struggled to explain. ‘I’m kind of scared of leaving. I still want to go to the farm and Ireland and that though.’
‘It’s bound to be a wrench, Jay,’ Bridie said consolingly. ‘After all, you were there weeks. You must have got to know the doctors and nurses quite well.’
Jay nodded. ‘Yeah, I did. But it’s not the same as being home.’
Both Bridie and Rosalyn saw the shadow pass over Jay’s face at the word ‘home’ and Bridie also noticed how bright his eyes were behind those long black lashes. She guessed the word home brought back thoughts of his mother but also knew to sympathise with him wouldn’t help. It might even make him cry and she knew he’d hate to do that in front of Rosalyn.
So instead she said, ‘You’ll be fit and strong in no time now you’re on the mend. Daddy will be glad of an extra pair of hands. He’ll have you at the milking before you know where you are, let me tell you.’
Catching Bridie’s mood, Jay said scornfully, ‘Huh, our Mickey does that already because he wrote and told me. He also said it was dead easy and he’d show me how it was done. He’s getting real cheeky.’
Both Bridie and Rosalyn smiled at the boy’s outraged face, but were not able to make a reply because just then the taxi pulled up outside the station. It was harder and more painful for Jay to get out of the taxi than it had been to get in it and when he’d done it eventually and stood, supported by his crutches, on the windy platform Bridie noticed his face was grey and had deep score lines on it. ‘You’ll feel better on the train,’ she said, and Jay just nodded.
His leg was throbbing badly and he was feeling very tired too; he’d slept little the night before, filled as he had been with excitement and slight apprehension at leaving the hospital. If his mother had been alive it would have been different altogether, but kind though Bridie had insisted her parents were, he barely knew them. He’d just been a little boy when he was last there and that had been with his mother and for a holiday only.
Then there was their Mickey, already installed and part of the place. He knew it couldn’t be helped, but it made him feel funny, like he was an outsider in some way. And he had no one to tell. He and Bridie had become good friends and could talk about most things, but how could he tell her this? It was like speaking against her parents.
But Bridie was no fool and thought it perfectly natural that the boy would feel it strange. She knew too that he was worn-out and in pain and once in the carriage she said, ‘Stretch out if you want, Jay. I shouldn’t think for a minute the train will get packed. Only idiots like us travel to Ireland in February.’
Oh, Jay thought
, how much more comfortable it was with his leg raised up and he wasn’t able to suppress the sigh of relief.
‘Have a sleep if you want to,’ Bridie continued. ‘I’ll sit beside you and make sure you don’t fall off. It’s a through train so you can have a fine old rest till we get to Liverpool.’ And thank God for that, she thought to herself, for the less walking about Jay had to do the better.
Jay didn’t answer. He was too tired to bother. His eyes fluttered closed and shortly afterwards his even breathing told Bridie and Rosalyn he was asleep.
He looked so young and vulnerable asleep that Bridie felt her heart lurch with sadness that Mary wasn’t there to see her two sons grown into manhood.
Rosalyn saw the look and gave Bridie’s arm a squeeze. ‘We can’t bring Mary back,’ she said. ‘But we’re doing what she wanted. It’s the next best thing.’
Bridie sighed. ‘I know,’ she said, and then with a wistful smile at the memory of her sister went on, ‘Ellen always thought Mary would never rear Jay, he was such a daredevil. He was always up to some mischief or other.’
‘I wouldn’t have said that,’ Rosalyn said.
‘He isn’t now,’ Bridie agreed. ‘There was a change in him after the men came home from Dunkirk. I didn’t see it at first, but he definitely matured after that. ’Course, he’s turned thirteen now, he’s growing up fast.’
‘How long will he have the plaster on?’
‘Some time yet, I believe,’ Bridie said. ‘The doctor told me the break to his arm was minor, what they call a greenstick fracture which usually heals completely, and the head injury too wasn’t too serious, though the gash was long and deep enough to need stitches. It was his leg that caught it mainly. It was broken in three places and he’d also ripped through sinew and muscle. He might always have a limp.’
‘Dear God, that’s nothing,’ Rosalyn said. ‘Anyone can live with a limp.’
‘Aye,’ Bridie said. ‘I know. If that’s all he’s left with, we can thank God for it.’
‘I’ll tell you what though,’ Rosalyn said. ‘I’m not looking forward to the ferry journey. I was as sick as a dog coming over.’
‘I’m not a good sailor either,’ Bridie said. ‘Though the times I’ve travelled have never been the best. One day, maybe I’ll travel across the Irish Sea with the sun shining and the sea itself like a millpond.’
‘That’s as unlikely as the thought that they might apply to have Hitler canonised after this little lot is over!’
The two women laughed together and then impulsively Rosalyn grabbed Bridie’s hand. ‘I’m so glad we’re friends again,’ she said. ‘Are you?’
‘Aye, I am,’ Bridie said. ‘It was nothing you’d done, you do understand that?’
‘’Course I do,’ Rosalyn assured her. ‘I would have reacted the same if such a dreadful thing had happened to me.’
Bridie made no reply to that. She didn’t want to start the whole thing about Francis again. Waiting for her at the journey’s end was the need to tell her mother and the thought of that was enough to tie her stomach in knots, she didn’t want to rehash it here.
Rosalyn seemed to understand, for she said nothing else about that, and instead they reminisced over their lives together when they were young. Rosalyn also described her life in America, an alien place to Bridie, despite the American films she’d seen at the picture house with Tom before the war, and Terry’s letters. Rosalyn’s life sounded colourful and exciting, just what she always wanted, and though Bridie knew it would never have suited her, she was glad her cousin was happy.
Then in a lull in the conversation Rosalyn asked, ‘How long are you stopping?’
‘A week,’ Bridie said. ‘No longer, I need to get back. You know …’
Rosalyn knew all right. She knew every minute Bridie would be fretting to go back. Rosalyn was very worried about her, for she hadn’t said a word about the children since she’d returned from seeing Todd and that in itself was ominous. She knew they’d never be far from her mind. She wondered if she’d faced the fact that those children might not be allowed to live with her again until Tom returned, whenever the damned war ended and they were allocated somewhere half-decent to live in.
Whatever Todd said, she decided she’d go back with Bridie – she badly needed support – and so she said, ‘Let me know what you decide and I’ll go with you.’
‘I thought you’d be staying here now?’
‘No, I can’t imagine what gave you that idea.’
‘Didn’t Todd say you should?’
‘Todd says many things and many times I take no notice of him,’ Rosalyn said with a laugh. ‘I’m my own woman and I’ll make my own decisions. Anyway, I’ve known you years longer than Todd and with the two of us, we’re bound to come up with some better place than that attic eventually.’
Bridie was too relieved and grateful to argue further and she took hold of Rosalyn’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Oh Rosalyn.’
‘Now don’t start blubbering,’ Rosalyn said briskly. ‘Jay will know you’ve been crying when he wakes up and he’ll go for me for upsetting you.’
Bridie smiled, knowing Rosalyn had a point – Jay was quite protective of her – and she said, ‘Rosalyn, I don’t know what I’d ever have done without you. I’m very grateful to you coming over and taking me in hand.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ Rosalyn said airily. ‘Isn’t that what friends are for? Anyway, you know I’ve always been a bossy cow.’ And she leaned across and kissed Bridie on the cheek.
As the boat ploughed its way through the choppy, churning water of the Irish Sea, Jay proved as poor a sailor as Bridie and Rosalyn. That day though, they had to ignore their own queasy stomachs to deal with the child, especially as he couldn’t stay on deck for any length of time as the sea spray and damp mist in the air were no good for his plaster cast.
‘I don’t remember being as sick as this the last time,’ Jay complained, wiping his mouth.
‘You were just wee, you’d hardly remember.’
‘I’d remember being this sick, anyone would,’ Jay said indignantly. He shivered suddenly and Bridie realised how thin his coat was. The first thing she must do before she left she thought was buy some suitable clothes for the boys. But that was for the future; Jay would freeze to death if he stayed up on deck much longer. ‘How are you feeling now?’ she said. ‘We’d be better inside.’
‘I’m all right,’ Jay assured her. And with Rosalyn’s help they moved slowly across the deck to the saloon.
A cacophony of noise greeted them as the door was opened: voices rising and falling, someone singing, a group arguing and gales of loud laughter coming from the four large men at the bar. The room smelt of a press of people, damp clothes, a hint of vomit, all over ridden by the smell of Guinness and the smoke from the cigarettes that hung in the air in a cloud.
She remembered the time she’d come over with Tom and he’d bought her a brandy to settle her stomach. ‘Did it work?’ Rosalyn asked when she told her.
‘Depends what you mean by work,’ Bridie said. ‘I went to sleep when I took mine with my head on Tom’s shoulder and when I woke up he had his arms around me. I was too embarrassed then to think of a queasy stomach.’
Rosalyn smiled. ‘Maybe we could all be doing with a bit of that,’ she said, and going to the bar brought them back two large brandies and a ginger beer for Jay, which the barman had assured her would make him as right as rain in no time.
He did feel better after he’d drunk it, he said, and so did Bridie, though she liked the taste no better than the first time she’d had it. But even with the help of the brandy and ginger beer, they all breathed a sigh of relief when the boat docked in Belfast.
By the time Jay had been carried off the boat and made his way to the awaiting train, his leg had begun to throb worse than ever. He remembered the doctor saying that he wasn’t sure he was up to such a journey and that his leg was far from well enough for such an arduous trek, but Jay had got so distressed
that, in the end, he’d reluctantly given permission.
Jay didn’t complain about the leg, though the pain was getting worse as they changed trains at Derry and then again to the rail bus at Strabane. Both Bridie and Rosalyn had noticed the child’s face, which had been stripped of colour on the ferry, turn grey with pain and caught him catching his lip and wincing more than once.
He’d not spoken much either and his replies to anything they’d asked him had been short and to the point. Bridie would be glad to get him home and hoped he hadn’t done himself any further harm, for it was not an easy trip, even for people with two good legs.
Jimmy was waiting for them as the rail bus pulled to a stop at the bottom of the farm. He had been devastated by the death of Mary and indeed Ellen and Sam, and more especially when Bridie’s children were feared dead too.
He’d had to rouse himself when Mickey arrived – a poor, wee, motherless child, confused and deeply unhappy – and then just after Christmas came the startling news that Bridie’s children were alive, sick, but alive, and in some hospital. And now Jamie – or Jay as he must remember to call him now – was coming to join his brother.
But when he saw the child in the murky half-light of a winter’s evening he was shocked. He swung the lantern he carried and it took in Jay’s face creased with pain, his bottom lip pinched and his eyes glazed over. ‘Dear Almighty God,’ he cried. ‘Let’s get you all indoors and quickly – this child needs his bed.’
He wished he could carry him, but the child was too tall and he was too old himself for that. He took much of Jay’s weight, however, and placed an arm about him as they hobbled towards the cottage, Rosalyn and Bridie lagging behind with their baggage and Jay’s abandoned crutches.
The warmth of the cottage hit their frozen bodies like a hot bath and caused fingers and toes to ache and tingle. The smell from the pot of something wonderful simmering above the peat fire made Bridie feel faint, despite the sandwiches they’d had on the train from Belfast to Derry.
Jimmy half-carried Jay to the fire, while Mickey, such a different child from the one who’d left Birmingham, was dancing behind him, crying, ‘What is it? What’s the matter with him? What’s he done?’
