by Anne Bennett
Sarah stepped away from the fire. ‘Leave your grandad,’ she said. ‘Your brother is tired and sore by the look of him. Come away out of that.’
But her eyes took in Bridie as she spoke and she crossed the room and enfolded her with her one good arm, kissing her cheeks. ‘Rosalyn,’ she said, turning from Bridie at last and hugging her niece. ‘Are you stopping for a bite? We have plenty.’
‘No thanks, Aunt Sarah,’ Rosalyn said. ‘Mammy will be expecting me.’
‘You’re sure now?’
‘Aye, but don’t press me too much,’ Rosalyn said with a laugh. ‘I might just sit and have a big feed for it smells delicious – oh dear God, Mammy would roast me alive, though, for she wrote that she’d have a meal ready too.’
‘Ah. Leave it so then,’ Bridie said.
‘Aye. See you all tomorrow.’
‘Bye, Rosalyn.’
‘Glad to see you two are friends again,’ Sarah remarked to Bridie as she laid cutlery on the table.
Bridie looked up from where she was hugging Mickey, who’d wrapped himself around her knees, and replied, ‘Aye, Rosalyn’s been just wonderful. I’d forgotten how great she was.’
‘Delia was over earlier – she’s glad to have her at home, for a wee while at least. Come on now, take off your coat and sit up to the table. Mickey will take your bags to your rooms, won’t you, Mickey, and then we can all eat.’
Jimmy had laid Jay in an armchair by the fire and pushed another one close to it to rest his leg. He gently removed his one boot and his coat and said, ‘The only place that child is going to move to is his bed. I’ll take his dinner over to him on a tray.’ And then he was before Bridie, and he knew she was more precious than ever to him now – his only remaining daughter – and, his voice broken with emotion, said, ‘How are you, my bonnie girl?’
‘Oh, Daddy!’ Bridie cried and they clung together. Bridie felt as if she was wee again and her daddy could protect her from everything and everybody, that she was safe and secure and need never be afraid. He smelt as he’d always done; of the outdoors and the animals, the peaty smell that had always clung to his clothes, and a hint of the pipe tobacco he smoked. It was blessedly familiar.
She had told her parents and Tom that the children had been injured in the raid and were in hospital and this is the story she stuck to over tea. Jay knew more, but she’d asked him to say nothing. She said she’d tell her parents what she thought they needed to know, and there was no reason at all to distress Mickey. He was still a young boy, she said, and could do nothing about it. Jay saw his aunt’s point.
Jimmy, with Mickey’s help, had done the milking before they arrived, so apart from washing the pots there was nothing for them all to do, but sit around the fire and talk together.
Bridie was glad to see Mickey so well and happy now, though her mother had told her in letters how he’d initially had horrific nightmares and even now sometimes cried for his mother. None of this was discussed in front of him though and Sarah only told of the positive things; what a good and helpful boy Mickey was about the farm and how well he’d settled in at the village school. ‘That’s why he won’t be allowed to stay up late tonight,’ Sarah said. ‘In fact …’
‘Ah, Grandma not on Jay’s first night,’ Mickey protested.
‘Jay’s not up to conversation tonight, Mickey,’ Jimmy told him. ‘There will be plenty of other nights. Now do as your grandma bids you and go on down to the room like a good boy.’
Mickey went reluctantly, dragging his feet, and Bridie smiled. She’d hated been sent to bed herself as a child, but now she thought longingly of settling down to sleep.
She could see Jay was also worn-out and Jimmy, also noticing this, said to Sarah, ‘I’ve a mind for Jay to sleep in our bed tonight. I’ve a feeling his leg might well be painful after today’s exertions. Mickey might kick out in the night and accidentally hurt him.’
‘What about you?’ Sarah asked.
‘I’ll do well enough in the bed chair beside the bed,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’d feel easier if I was beside the boy, for tonight at least. You don’t mind, sure you don’t?’
‘I do not,’ Sarah said emphatically. ‘I’ll share the bed with Bridie so.’
Bridie, although she knew her father was right for Jay looked far from well, was apprehensive about sharing a bed with her mother. But there was no alternative so, pleading tiredness, she went to bed not long after Mickey, intending to be asleep before her mother came to bed.
Once in bed, however, though her eyes were smarting as if they had grit rubbed into them and her limbs ached with fatigue, sleep would not come.
She lay this way and that, tossing about in the bed to find a comfortable spot. She told herself to relax, but she couldn’t. She shut her eyes and counted sheep, but eventually she gave up and opened her eyes again.
Empty your mind – she’d heard that expression somewhere and now thought it a crazy one. So much had happened to her and her loved ones over the last weeks, months and years – how could you sweep those memories and worries away like so much rubbish? And in the night, when you’re in bed, alone, enjoying a bit of peace for maybe the first time that day, the anxieties gained a foothold and hammered at your brain.
And Bridie had many worries – sorrowful remembrances and problems that seemed unsolvable – that when Sarah came to bed, she was more wide awake than ever. She shut her eyes quickly, pretending she was asleep, but Sarah was not fooled. ‘I know you’re awake, Bridie, I heard you tossing about till just a few minutes ago.’
With a sigh, Bridie opened her eyes. ‘I am tired,’ she said. ‘That’s no lie, I just can’t seem to get off.’
‘Things troubling you, maybe?’
There was a pause and a sigh before Bridie said, ‘Aye.’
‘Need to talk about it?’
It wasn’t how Bridie planned to tell her mother, but now with the two boys in the house, one at home all day and Beatie coming in on them in the morning, as well as her father’s company in the evening, it might be her only chance.
She took a deep breath and began.
Sarah lay in the dark beside her daughter and listened to her telling her of her uncle’s interference with her when she was but fourteen years of age. Dimly, Sarah remembered Bridie, telling her a tale of Francis touching and kissing her in a way she found upsetting. And how she had reacted? Had she given her sympathy, understanding, even asked her to explain further?
No, Sarah thought, she hadn’t and yet she knew then of Francis’s philandering. She’d known of it for years because once Delia, depressed beyond measure by her sham of a marriage, had told her of it.
Sarah knew also of Francis’s preference for young girls, and he had the charm, wit and good looks to attract them. So why, knowing this, did she not question her daughter further? She thought she was safe, being family. But did she, really? Sarah admitted to herself that night that she hadn’t wanted to face the fact that Francis had behaved inappropriately with her daughter.
Bridie had only had Mary to confide in, Sarah realised, but she waited, for she knew the abuse that Mary dealt with so adequately when she came over to visit was nowhere near the end of the story. And it wasn’t, though Bridie burned with embarrassment at the things she had to describe and was so stiff with tension, she lay beside her mother like a block of wood.
Rosalyn said Bridie must spare her mother nothing, but Bridie had never spoken of intimate things with her mother and it was hard to do so now. Many times she would pause and try to gather the courage to continue. This was never more so than when she was describing Francis trailing her into the woods and the ensuing rape. She knew then, whatever Rosalyn had advised, had they not both been hidden by darkness, she couldn’t have told her mother, especially when she heard her sharp intake of breath.
Sarah was feeling various emotions as she listened to her daughter: shame and regret that she’d done nothing about this when she had the chance; disgust and revulsion that Francis should do such a
thing. It was obscene to violate any young, innocent girl, but when that girl was your own niece, who had looked upon you as a father figure, it was a vile abomination.
Bridie had stopped talking again and so Sarah said, ‘My darling child, there aren’t words enough in the whole English language to say how sorry I am – I let you down and I’m bitterly ashamed. Was this what made you flee your home? Did you felt you couldn’t trust Francis?’
‘In a way,’ Bridie said. ‘But it was worse than that.’
Sarah lay stock still in the bed, knowing for a young, unmarried girl there was only one way things could get worse. She suddenly remembered how she commented to Jimmy that the upset over Rosalyn leaving had stopped Bridie’s monthly cycle and recalled that she’d heard her being sick in the chamber pot in the mornings. But never in a million years would she have guessed that her young daughter was pregnant. She hadn’t even a boyfriend at the time.
It was hard for Bridie to go on and Sarah’s hand sought hers. She knew there was more, and she needed to know what it was, but she also needed to let Bridie know she was on her side. ‘Go on, my love,’ she said as she squeezed her hand.
That encouragement gave Bridie the courage to continue. She hadn’t fled to England because she couldn’t bear life with them, or even because she couldn’t stand Francis’s proximity. She’d fled to England because Francis had made her pregnant. Bridie said she knew that the knowledge of this would have destroyed them all, ripped the families apart, and Sarah felt bitter shame flow through her.
Every word Bridie spoke was true. Would they have stood by her if she’d come to them for help? Wouldn’t she have felt in some way that Bridie was to blame? So her child, and she was still a child then, had borne it alone, running to her sister, the only one who’d believed her, to save the family from disgrace.
And because she’d run away to save their shame, their standing in the community, and preserve the links between both families, Sarah had cast her off, had declared her not to be a daughter of hers, ignoring the letters she wrote day after day. How in God’s name could she ever make this up to her daughter – the one she’d loved more than life itself, the only one she had left, and the one who’d suffered the most?
The words poured out of Bridie: the panic she’d felt, the dilemma she was in and she told of the cycle ride in a cold, dark and rain-sodden winter’s night to Strabane. Sobs overtook her as she spoke and Sarah lay beside her, mortified with shame for her part in it, and thought it was a pity Francis was dead, for she’d like to kill him by her own hands, slowly and be damned to the consequences.
Bridie was still afraid to tell her mother of the abortion, but Sarah had almost prepared herself for that – what else could she have done for there was no child. An aberration in God’s eyes, the Church called abortion, but where was God when her child was violated?
Sarah sensed Bridie’s hesitation and again urged her on. ‘Go on, pet. Tell me all.’ Bridie told her how it was – the pain afterwards and the loss of blood that caused her to be taken to hospital, and how she’d been blackmailed for years from one whose family lived not far from them at all.
‘She threatened to tell you all unless I gave her money,’ Bridie said. ‘She didn’t know it all, not who the father of the baby was, but I was still scared. You would have been destroyed and all I’d done would have counted for nothing. Dear God, I couldn’t have borne that.’
Sarah was in shock; this turn of events was totally unexpected. What a thing to happen to her own dear daughter!
‘The money was bad enough,’ Bridie went on, ‘especially when I had to borrow it from Mary and she’d give out to me for being a bad manager. Sometimes I’d have to take it from the post office account Tom put by as our nest egg, and occasionally I pawned something, but that was money just. What I lost sleep over was what she said about Katie and Liam, cursing them and prophesising that God would have his revenge and something would happen to them because of my wickedness,’ Bridie said, her voice not much more than a whisper.
‘D’you know, Mammy, her last words on earth were that God would have his revenge. I’m glad she died then. At that moment I had the urge to choke her to bloody death. But I thought she was right then too, because I thought my children were in pieces, spread all over the bomb site.’
Bridie began to cry at this point and Sarah held her and wept with her. She thought Bridie had finished but after a few minutes she went on, almost angrily: ‘They’re alive, Mammy, and I thought my troubles were over, but they are as far away as ever. Mammy, oh Mammy, I don’t think I can bear this pain anymore.’
Sarah was confused. ‘But didn’t you tell us that they were in hospital, child? You’ll have them home again when they’re recovered, surely? Isn’t that the way of it?’
‘No, Mammy, not quite,’ Bridie said. ‘Some of the raids are dreadful, and there are so many injured, the hospitals are often chock-a-block. They’ve drained swimming pools and emptied basements to use as emergency centres and the injured are redirected all over the city to where there is room. Mine were apparently taken to the Children’s Hospital first – because they were so small the ambulance driver thought if they could fit them in there, they probably had better facilities to deal with them. The doctor told us this.
‘Everyone was dead but Mickey, and they had no idea the children had any living relatives. By the time Rosalyn and I tracked them down, almost a month later, they’d been sent to an orphanage out in the countryside with a specialist hospital wing attached to it. The hospital specialises in trauma-related injuries of the mind. When the children recover sufficiently they are transferred to the main orphanage.’
Sarah digested this and then she said, ‘What’s wrong with the children, Bridie?’
‘They’re mentally ill, Mammy,’ Bridie told her mother. ‘Scarred emotionally, maybe for ever by their incarceration under tons and tons of rubble in the pitch black, all on their own for hours. They’ve sort of closed their minds to it and the shock has caused them to lose the power of speech. That’s why it took me so long to find them. Neither of them could say who they were.’
‘Dear God, this is dreadful,’ Sarah said. ‘But surely to God they’ll recover in time?’
Bridie shrugged. ‘Who knows, Mammy.’
‘Don’t they even speak to you?’
‘I wouldn’t know, Mammy. ‘I haven’t been allowed to see them yet.’
‘Not been allowed to see them,’ Sarah repeated in horror. ‘But, child, you are their mother!’
‘I know, Mammy, but every time I say that, they remind me that the children are sick and having treatment and I could make them worse by seeing them. How can I risk that? It isn’t as if I can even promise them anything, for I know even if they recover totally, they will not be returned to me.’
‘Of course they will.’
‘No, they won’t.’ Bridie said firmly. ‘They’ve told me that. I live in this awful attic, Mammy, it’s truly dreadful. There is no room in it for the children and they wouldn’t deem it suitable anyway. I’ve tried and tried to find somewhere better, but with no luck. I’d also hesitate to take them back into the city. I mean what if there was another raid and something else, something worse, happened to them?
‘Anyway,’ Bridie went on dejectedly. ‘It’s probably just as well. I don’t have contact with the children.’ And she went on to tell her mother about the day she’d called at the orphanage and, after being shown the door, she’d traced the fence around the perimeter of the grounds. ‘I came to a place where the children were playing,’ Bridie continued. ‘I didn’t see Liam, but I did see Katie. And she saw me and screamed, Mammy. Screamed and screamed and screamed. I’m worthless as a mother if that’s what my child thinks of me.’
‘Of course you’re not worthless,’ Sarah told Bridie, holding her tight against her. ‘You’re a wonderful mother. You frightened Katie, that’s all. You didn’t speak to her?’
‘I called her name, that’s all.’
‘Well then.’
‘What d’you mean, well then?’
‘She was probably unnerved at seeing you, even frightened perhaps,’ Sarah said. ‘Leave it now, darling, till the morning and we’ll talk again.’
Bridie said nothing, but though she lay nestled in her mother’s arms she didn’t think she’d sleep. But eventually she did. Sarah, holding her daughter, merely dozed and in between made plans in her head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Bridie opened her eyes, but the room was in darkness and for a moment she was disoriented. Then the memories of the previous evening came flooding back. Dimly, she saw her mother clamber out of bed, strike a match and light the lamp on the table, bathing the bed in a soft orange glow.
‘Mammy,’ Bridie said, struggling to sit up.
‘Ah, pet!’ Sarah said. ‘Did I wake you?’
‘I don’t know what woke me,’ Bridie said. ‘I didn’t think I’d sleep.’
‘Well, you did,’ Sarah said with satisfaction, struggling into her clothes. ‘How d’you feel now?’
How did she feel? Better. The heavy burden of shame and guilt that had lodged between her shoulder blades was gone. She’d become so used to the heaviness over the years, she’d barely noticed it, but she knew it was gone all right. ‘I feel grand, Mammy,’ she said. ‘Grand, so I do.’
‘Good,’ Sarah said. ‘Now I want you to rest yourself and not think of a thing.’
‘I was going to give Daddy a hand with the milking.’
‘You’ll do no such thing. What d’you think we pay Willie for?’ Sarah said. ‘Mickey has begun to help him in the evening, but I’ll not let him get up at this hour. He’s just a wean yet.’
‘Aye,’ Bridie said. ‘Poor Mary.’
Sarah sighed. ‘Aye indeed, poor Mary. God, I thought I’d die myself when I heard the news. And then Eddie came with the young boy and I saw how they were. My heart went out to them. Eddie had no time to grieve, he had to go back to the army. And Tom, thinking his own children dead, would be no real help to him. But because Mickey was in our care, we had to buck up. It was the saving of the two of us.’
