Lizzie just looked at her. ‘To get rid of the babby, like?’ She suppressed the hope that rose inside her. Nothing had worked so far, so why should this be any different. ‘What?’
‘Well,’ Violet said. ‘I don’t know much about it, like, and I’d have to make enquiries, but I can be discreet when I want to be. It’s these tablets, and you take them and have a bottle of gin and sit in a hot bath and bingo. Only,’ she added, ‘it only works if you are three months or under. How far on are you?’
‘Going on fifteen weeks,’ Lizzie said, ‘so it probably wouldn’t work, but anyway, I couldn’t do it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Violet,’ Lizzie said, ‘I have no feelings for this child I am carrying, but nothing is its fault. I’ve taken codliver oil and thrown myself down the stairs to no avail. But tablets…I’ve thought long and hard about this and I’ve decided now that the only good thing I can do for this child is to hide away somewhere until it is born and then let it go to someone who will give it a good and loving home. What if I took something that damaged it in some way? No one would want it then and it would spend its life in some institution, and I would feel guilty for the rest of mine.’
Violet thought about Lizzie’s words and could see her reasoning. ‘But how long are you going to leave it?’ she said, ‘because though there is nowt yet, you’ll be showing soon. And where’re you going to go, anyroad?’
‘Back to Ireland,’ Lizzie replied.
‘Is that the only option?’
‘All I can think of,’ Lizzie told her resignedly. ‘What would Flo do if she got to know? And Steve would be told her version of it posthaste. I can’t risk that.’
Violet knew that Flo and Steve wouldn’t be the only ones to judge and castigate Lizzie. Because she didn’t
mention the rape after the attack, few would believe she was raped at all, but she didn’t share these thoughts. She just put her arms around Lizzie and held her tight. ‘If anyone in the whole bleeding world will believe you, surely to God it will be your mother?’ she said at last.
Lizzie doubted it. Her mother wouldn’t hear the words of any sort of explanation. She’d see only the shame of it, the disgrace, the fact that she’d be snubbed shopping in Ballintra, and ostracised at St Bridget’s. The whole family, including her own two wee children, would become social lepers. She knew that a girl may as well commit suicide as take that news home to her mother in Ireland. However, she didn’t think there was any alternative for her.
‘There’s places women can go away to and stay until they have their babies,’ she said, ‘and then the nuns find homes for them. I mean, I don’t know where they are or anything, but everyone knows about them. I heard of a girl like that once. Her parents said she’d gone to her auntie’s in England, but there had never been talk of any auntie before, no letters or anything, and no one from England had ever come to visit, so people drew their own conclusions and a few months later the girl was back.’
‘Well at least they’ll not know or suspect that of you here,’ Violet said, ‘because it’s natural for you to go to Ireland to see your kids and then come back again.’
‘Aye,’ Lizzie said, and gave a grim little smile. ‘And Niamh will be pleased at least. I haven’t really answered her letter properly yet. I’ve just made vague promises,
you know. But I can tell her I’m coming home for a bit in this latest letter. But not just yet. I’m going to hang on as long as possible, because I am terrified of facing my mother. And these places are run by nuns, and nuns are…well, they’re not exactly angels of mercy, you know.’
‘At least stay a little longer,’ Violet said. ‘You’re so blooming thin there ain’t even the slightest bulge yet. So, when you find out about these places, what you’ve got to remember is however bad they are, you will only be there for a few months and anyone can stand that. Have the baby, leave it with the nuns for adoption, and come back here and pick up on your life again: and Bob’s your uncle and no one’s any the wiser. But for God’s sake be careful. Don’t leave it so long that someone will jump to it before you can get yourself away.’
‘I know, Violet. I won’t, don’t worry.’
‘That’s it, girl,’ Violet said encouragingly, ‘and when it’s all over, I’ll be waiting here for you. Feed Flo some line like you’re sick or summat and going home for a rest, and tell the factory the same and any who ask. Give your notice in properly, because you don’t want anyone getting suspicious and poking about in your business, especially not now.’
Lizzie knew Violet spoke sense. She must handle this just as if she was really going home for a wee holiday. She wondered how big she would be by the time of Niamh’s First Communion. She’d be five months pregnant, but maybe with her physique she’d get away with it, and she remembered how the doctor used to laugh when she was expecting the other two and ask
if there really was a baby there at all. ‘Please God,’ she implored. ‘Let this one be the same.’
And when the child was born it would go to a good, respectable, childless couple who would give it all the love, attention and time that it needed. Then she really could put the events of that terrifying night in February behind her and look forward at last.
Towards the middle of June, one of Lizzie’s workmates who often worked alongside her said, ‘Hey, Lizzie, you must be the only one here that’s putting on weight.’
Lizzie paled and bent her head so it should not be seen as she said, ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Pretty obvious, ain’t it. I mean, there ain’t much to you and never has been, but there’s more of you than there was, that’s all. While the rest of us are halfstarved on the bleeding rations you seem to be thriving on yours.’
‘It was bound to come sooner or later,’ Violet said on the way home. ‘Pregnancy is one thing you can’t hide, though you’ve managed much longer than many could. But to dally any longer would be plain stupid.’
Lizzie knew that too. ‘I’ll give my notice in tomorrow and then write to mammy and make the arrangements,’ she promised. ‘I’ll write to Steve too, though I know he’ll have no objection.’
Lizzie’s boss had plenty of objections, though. He liked Lizzie and thought her a good worker. ‘Go home for a while, see your kids, watch the young one make her Communion or whatever and I’ll hold your job.’
‘It’s very kind of you.’
‘Kind, be damned. It’s myself I’m thinking of as well.’
‘I don’t know how long I’ll be away.’
‘You could send me word?’
‘No, really, I think it’s best if I just leave,’ Lizzie said, and added untruthfully, ‘My doctor recommended me to have a break; my nerves are bad.’
‘Hmph! The very devil, nerves,’ the boss conceded. ‘But I must say, my girl, you show no sign of it. You’re positively blooming. In fact, I wish half the factory looked so healthy.’
And Lizzie did look healthy. Her skin was clear, her cheeks tinged with pink from the early summer sun and her hair shone. Inside herself, a solid lump of panic, fear and dread had settled. It sometimes seemed to fill Lizzie’s throat so she didn’t feel hungry, or it would attach itself to her raw nerve-ends so she was nervous and jumpy.
No one could see inside, however, but most women she worked with could understand how she would miss her children. Many of the children in the area who’d been evacuated in the first rush on 1
st
September had been brought back by Christmas, though more were evacuated a second time after the severity of the November raids the following year. ‘I know they went to strangers, like,’ one girl said to Lizzie, ‘but they’re all right, with good people and not that far away really, means I can see them of a weekend, like. Must be awful for you to take them over to Ireland and not clap eyes on them for six months. I don’t blame you going to see them.’
Flo blamed her, but then hadn’t Lizzie expected that? When had the woman ever approved of anything she’d ever done?
‘What about the house?’
Lizzie longed to retort. ‘What about the house? Hitler could deprive us of it at any time?’ But this time Flo had a point, because empty houses could soon be occupied by squatters and they would be the devil’s own to shift when she came back. So she controlled the anger that this woman’s malevolent stance and voice evoked in her and said, ‘Maybe Neil would take it on for a bit?’
‘Who’d see to him?’
God, the woman hardly did a hand’s turn for the man now. And he was a man, well able, surely to God, to see to himself. ‘Well, doesn’t he get his breakfast and dinner out now?’ she said. ‘He could come to you for his evening meal if he wanted, but it would be someone in the house and he could take over the rent, like.’
And while Flo was ruminating over Lizzie’s words and trying to find fault with them, she added, ‘Steve was all for me going over and checking that the children are all right.’
Flo was silent and so Lizzie knew Steve had written in the same vein to her. When Flo did eventually speak, it was to say, ‘How long do you intend to stay?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ Lizzie said evasively. ‘A few months.’
‘A few months!’ Flo shrieked.
‘Aye, maybe. I’ll have to see how things pan out.’
‘How things pan out,’ Flo repeated with scorn. ‘Things have panned out, my girl, and let me tell you, your place is here, waiting for your man, with or without your children. A couple of weeks is all the time you need.’
Lizzie lifted her head, her eyes flashed fire, but still she controlled herself. ‘Surely,’ she said, ‘I am the judge of that.’
‘We’ll see about that, girl. See what our Steve thinks.’
Lizzie knew what Steve would think, for he’d told her clearly enough, so Flo could go and drown herself, and she went on with the preparations for the journey. By Monday, 30
th
June she was ready, tickets bought, letters written, welcome assured. Violet uncharacteristically kissed Lizzie goodbye with tears in her own eyes. She was worried by the unfathomable sadness Lizzie seemed to carry around with her, which deepened as the day of departure drew near. She had a near-desolate look in her eyes and Violet was very anxious about the reception she would have when she told her parents the real reason that she was back home.
If Lizzie could have allowed herself to talk of it she would have said Violet’s apprehensions were nothing compared to her own. But she couldn’t talk about it, not without breaking down and crying her eyes out and what earthly good would that be, for however she felt there was no alternative plan.
By the time the train pulled in at Donegal Station, Lizzie felt sick with fear; but as she stepped onto the platform she saw her two children running towards her with cries of, ‘Mammy’. She put down her cases and crouched with her arms held wide and was nearly knocked on her back as Tom cannoned into her, while Niamh approached her more gently but just as eagerly. Lizzie hugged them both tight, realising afresh how she had missed them, and she felt a lump in her throat.
Johnnie came after the children, and when they eventually let her go he too embraced her. ‘Ah, Lizzie, the weans aren’t the only ones to have missed you,’ he said. ‘Even Mammy, never one to show her feelings overmuch, is like a dog with two tails.’
Lizzie didn’t answer, for every word Johnnie said was like a hammer blow. The more her mother looked forward to her coming home, the greater her disappointment would be when Lizzie told her what she’d come home to tell her.
Johnnie didn’t notice Lizzie’s silence then, for the children were chattering away and he was busy stowing Lizzie’s luggage in the cart. But later, with the children drowsily quiet, for it was late for them, the silence stretched out between Johnnie and Lizzie and eventually Johnnie said, ‘Are you all right, Liz? I mean, are you just tired, or is there something wrong, for I never remember seeing you this quiet before?’
How Lizzie longed to tell him, this brother of hers who she knew would never doubt a word she said and would help and support her in anything she wanted to do. He would listen and not interrupt as the horse clip-clopped along the quiet country road, and if she got upset in the telling he would rein the horse in and take Lizzie in his arms. But Lizzie’s children were in the cart and they must never know of that night, and really she knew her mother had to be the first to be told of it. So she said, ‘No, Johnnie, there’s nothing wrong. I’m just tired.’
Johnnie looked at her strangely, but said nothing, and Lizzie forced a laugh. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘you are a fine one to talk, for you have scarcely opened your
mouth either. Don’t you go worrying your head about me, for I’ll be as right as rain after a good night’s sleep.’
As the cart clattered across the cobbled yard of the farmhouse, the children were roused from their semislumber and Tom leapt from the cart before it had stopped, so careless in his excitement he almost fell under the wheels, earning him a reprimand from his uncle. But nothing could dim his excitement that day and he looked not the slightest bit abashed.
‘Come on now,’ Johnnie said to Niamh as he unloaded the luggage. ‘Catch up your mammy’s bag and go and ask your Granny has she the kettle on.’
Niamh caught the bag Johnnie threw and ran across the cobbled yard, shouting, ‘Granny, Granny, Mammy’s here.’
Johnnie grinned at Lizzie. ‘She’d have to be deaf not to know already,’ he said, and added, more gently, ‘Go in now and rest yourself,’ and Lizzie followed her daughter with Tom hanging on to her hand for grim death.
She stood at the farmhouse door for a moment and drank in the familiarity of it all. Inside, right beside the door on a stool was the bucket of water from the well. Beside it was a scrubbed wooden table with chairs and stools tucked beneath it, and in front of the small lace-trimmed window was the settle, which could be opened up if a spare bed was needed, only the wooden seat was almost hidden by bright cushions. Before the hearth was set a small settee and a chair and a couple of creepie stools made of bog oak. Above the glowing peat was hung a simmering pot and the smell was
making Lizzie’s mouth water. To one side of the fireplace was the press holding all the everyday delft, and to the other side was the bed for Lizzie’s parents, surrounded by curtains for privacy.
Against the far wall was the sideboard and wooden bin where the oaten meal was stored, but pride of place beside the door that led to the first bedroom was the dresser. Polished to a high shine, it held the best delft—the willow-pattern dinner-set plates and dishes were displayed and cups hung on the hooks, and she remembered sitting as a child before the fire, the firelight and lamps catching the delft and making it sparkle.