Molly took one look at Bridgette’s face and although she was reeling herself from the things Bridgette had said she left the children swaying back and forwards on the swings, put her arms around her weeping cousin, and led her to a nearby bench, glad they had the playground to themselves.
Bridgette’s distress was so profound that in the end Molly felt her own eyes fill up.
Eventually, Bridgette tried to get a grip on herself as she saw the babies watching her dolefully and, seeing her a little calmer, Molly said, ‘Before my mother died she told me about Finn and how he died, and said that he had loved a girl called Gabrielle dearly. She was just a young girl herself and she thought it the most romantic thing. In fact, when Finn died, had she known anything about Gabrielle other than her first name and the fact that she lived above a baker’s shop in some obscure French town or village, then she would have written and told her that he was dead. It’s just amazing that years later I am talking to his daughter that I never even knew existed.’
‘Like you say, it is amazing,’ Bridgette said. ‘Sorry about that outburst earlier, but I didn’t think I would ever find you. I have felt so alone for so long that I can hardly believe it and I am almost afraid that you might just disappear in a cloud of smoke.’
‘Believe me, I am far too substantial to disappear in any cloud of smoke,’ Molly said with a laugh. ‘But we need to go home soon, if you feel OK. It’s not far and Mark will be in before long. He will want to hear and, goodness, I wonder how the others will view it. I’d love to see Uncle Tom’s face.’
‘I would like to go home with you, really I would,’ Bridgette said, ‘but I lodge with a lovely lady and she will worry if I do not return.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll dispatch Kevin,’ Molly said. ‘He’s very obliging like that, my young brother, and he will explain things to her. Now we have met at last I’m not letting you out of my sight.’
Tom was living with his sister Aggie and brother-in-law Paul Simmons in Sutton Coldfield. He received few letters as all the family lived close together, so when Aggie had one for him when he came in from work one evening in mid-May, he was pleased. He recognised the writing as Nellie McEvoy’s. She had written to him a few times after he’d moved to England, usually to keep him up to date with small-town gossip.
Tom slit the envelope and withdrew the letter with a smile on his face. However, when he read that the girl he had almost forgotten about, Gabrielle’s daughter, Bridgette, had been in touch with Christy and was now in Birmingham searching for her family, he was totally staggered. He unfolded Bridgette’s letter and read that too.
‘What is it?’ Aggie said. She had seen the frown puckering Tom’s brow.
‘It’s nothing upsetting really,’ Tom told his sister. ‘Just surprising. Our youngest brother, Finn, was billeted for a time in a small town in Northern France after he joined the army. And there he sowed his wild oats a little too well and in 1916 was married to a French girl called Gabrielle Jobert, who was expecting his baby.’
‘Did you know all about it?’
‘Well, yes, but not for years afterwards. Finn enlisted with a childhood friend called Christy Byrne, and he told me of the great passion between Finn and Gabrielle.’ He went on to tell Aggie and Paul everything Christy had told him of Finn’s love affair, which had culminated in his hasty marriage. ‘Christy wrote to Gabrielle when he arrived home, telling her of Finn’s death,’ Tom said. ‘And later Gabrielle had a daughter she called Bridgette, after our mother.’
‘He never even got to see her,’ Aggie said. ‘How very sad. But why didn’t this Christy also write to Mammy and Daddy and tell them about Gabrielle and their grandchild?’
‘Well,’ said Tom, ‘it would have been difficult because Finn had never told our parents about his sexual exploits. He told me and Joe, boasted of it, and told Nuala a fair bit too. But all he wrote to my parents was that he was going to Mass every Sunday, and going to confession and taking Communion on a regular basis and was as well and happy as could be expected in the circumstances. That is really all they wanted to know.’
‘So it would have been a shock to them, d’you mean?’ Paul said. ‘Like they might not have believed it?’
‘There’s that, of course,’ Tom said. ‘But there was a bit more to it than that.’ And he went on to tell them of Finn’s giving the wrong date of birth to put on the certificate and why he had done it. ‘My parents would know, of course, if
they had wind of it,’ he added, ‘and could possibly declare the marriage null and void because their permission hadn’t been sought.’
‘From what I remember of her, Mammy would have done that,’ Aggie said. ‘Especially if she thought some young brazen French girl had snared her son.’
‘Your memory serves you well,’ Tom said. ‘France, like Ireland, is a Catholic country where I should imagine having a child without a husband is the greatest sin in the world. Anyway, Christy and Gabrielle decided to leave things as they were and say nothing.’
‘So when were you told?’ Paul asked.
‘Oh, years later,’ Tom said. ‘After Mammy died.’
‘Did you not think to get in touch then?’
‘Yes, I thought of it,’ Tom said. ‘But the country was at war, and France was occupied. Then we thought Gabrielle, who Christy claimed was very beautiful, had probably married again and maybe no one had told the child about her real father, especially if Gabrielle had other children. Now we know this to be true, for Bridgette wrote to Nellie McEvoy that her mother only told her the truth when she was terminally ill and Bridgette was nursing her. On her death bed her mother made Bridgette promise to contact us. She is a widow with a small son that she has called Finn and she wants him to know his Irish relatives.’
‘Seems reasonable.’ Paul said. ‘Where is she now?’
‘Here,’ Tom said. ‘In Erdington, according to her address.’
‘So how did she get in touch with Nellie at the post office in Buncrana?’
‘Must have been Christy advised her,’ Tom said. ‘She wrote to see if someone there had our addresses and of course Nellie has them all, but didn’t want to send them off to a perfect stranger.’
‘So what are you going to do?’ Paul asked.
‘Well, contact her, of course,’ Tom said. ‘She’s as much my niece as Molly is. But I thought maybe I should at least warn the others before I do that because it will be a shock to them all. After I have eaten I will pop along to see Joe and we will go round to Molly’s.
‘Me too,’ Aggie decided.
‘You’re right,’ said Tom. ‘We’ll all go.’
‘Where do the others live?’ Bridgette said as they were making their way back to Molly’s house.
‘Oh, no one lives far away,’ Molly said. ‘My house backs onto Pype Hayes Park, and if you walk diagonally down as far as the stream and come out of that gate you are in Sutton Coldfield and in a district of it called Walmley. They all live there.’
‘I was surprised to hear that Tom had given up the farm and moved here,’ Bridgette said. ‘My father always told my mother that he was a born farmer.’
‘I asked him that when he suggested coming
here first,’ said Molly. ‘I thought he might regret it, but he said that he never had a say in whether he wanted to be a farmer. He sort of fell into it because he was the eldest and would inherit. Lonely existence, though, and he thought a pointless one: he would be killing himself with the work and at the end of it there would be no one to leave it to. He had a point because he never married and Joe didn’t want it.’
‘My mother said that Finn talked about the family all the time,’ Bridgette said. ‘He always said that Joe wanted to see beyond Buncrana and he would if he plucked up enough courage.’
‘Well, he did,’ Molly said. ‘He went to New York in 1921, loved the life there and ended up marrying the boss’s daughter, Gloria. They had everything—a fine house and thriving factory—but then came something called the Wall Street Crash. I don’t understand it all but it’s something to do with stocks and shares and the price of them goes up and down. Joe said it was a bit of a gamble and he had nothing to do with it. But his father-in-law had gambled thousands using the house and factory as collateral, and when the prices of shares dropped so low they were worthless he realised they had lost everything. In fact it was so bad, his father-in-law shot himself.’
Bridgette gave a gasp of shock. ‘What did they do?’
‘It was a terrible time,’ Molly said. She told Bridgette of Joe and Gloria’s slide into real and
abject poverty, and how they had nearly starved to death in the tenements of New York, and when Ben was born it was even worse.
‘It was for Ben’s sake that they came to London before the war, but when the war began Joe became a volunteer fireman until he was badly injured in 1942.’
‘Is he all right now?’
‘Yes, he’s fine,’ Molly said. ‘He went back to Buncrana to recover properly when the hospital was finished with him, because their flat had been destroyed by then and Gloria and Ben had been living in a church hall.’
‘Did he mind going back?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Molly said. ‘By all accounts, it was Gloria that minded. Tom always said that none of us realised just how much.’
‘Why?’ Bridgette asked. ‘What did she do?’
‘I’ll fill you in later,’ Molly said. ‘We’re here now and if I’m not careful Mark and Kevin will be in on top of us and the dinner won’t even have been started.’
However, the meal was well on its way by the time Mark put in an appearance. When Bridgette saw Nuala’s eyes light up as she caught sight of her father she felt sorry for her son who would grow up without one. Then Nuala launched herself across the room shouting ‘Dadeee’ as loud as she could. Mark caught up his young daughter, and even while he lifted her in his arms and planted a kiss on her cheek, he was looking quizzically at
Bridgette and her son, who was playing on the floor.
Molly caught the look and said, ‘Save the questions until Kevin is in and we are sitting around the table to save me repeating myself. But this is Bridgette Laurent and her son, Finn. Bridgette, this is my husband, Mark.’
Mark’s eyebrows rose, but his smile was genuine and he shifted Nuala to his left hip and approached Bridgette with his hand outstretched. ‘I suppose all will be explained in due course,’ he said, with a smile that made his dark brown eyes twinkle. ‘Till then, Bridgette Laurent, I bid you welcome.’
The handshake was as firm as Bridgette expected it to be and Mark’s face was open and honest. She decided that she liked her cousin Molly’s husband. ‘It’s quite a story,’ she smiled back
‘And one I will look forward to hearing,’ Mark said.
Bridgette wasn’t able to make a reply for at that moment a young boy came through the door and immediately Nuala was clamouring to be let down. She ran to the lad, whom Molly introduced as her brother, Kevin. He too lifted Nuala into his arms while Molly introduced Bridgette. He shook hands with Bridgette and then squatted down by Finn. ‘And who’s this?’ he said, glancing up at Bridgette as he built a big tower of bricks.
‘Finn,’ said Bridgette. ‘He was called after my father, who was a British soldier.’
‘Was he?’ Kevin said. ‘Then what—’
‘Sit up to the table, Kevin, and we’ll tell you everything,’ Molly said. When everyone was seated she placed a large casserole on a mat on the table, saying as she did so, ‘Now, I would like to say that this is beef casserole, but this is austere postwar Britain, so it has plenty of vegetables, with the meat just waved over it.’
‘It’s what I am used to,’ Bridgette said. ‘During the occupation in France it was far worse, because a lot of the food was sent to Germany. Most people got used to feeling hungry.’
‘We didn’t go hungry exactly,’ Molly said. ‘We were more bored.’
‘I’ll say,’ Kevin said with feeling. ‘It was carrots and swede nearly every day. And it wasn’t like served with the meal. It
was
the meal.’
There was laughter around the table. ‘Yes, Kevin’s not far wrong there,’ Molly said. ‘We had many meals that had no meat in it at all.’
‘Yeah, like Woolton Pie,’ Kevin said. ‘That was just disgusting.’
Molly, seeing Bridgette’s confused look, explained, ‘The Minister for Food, Lord Woolton, devised this pie and it was considered a patriotic thing to eat it. All that was in it was potatoes, swede, carrots, onions, Marmite and oatmeal.’
‘And even the crust wasn’t crust,’ Kevin complained. ‘It was like a lump of dough on top.’
‘Well, it was made with only flour and lard.’
‘It was horrible.’
‘It was,’ Molly agreed, and added sarcastically,
‘and I’m sure that Lord Woolton is such an honourable man that he has it served up to him morning, noon and night.’
There were gales of laughter around the table and Bridgette realised what a happy family they were and how easy they were with one another. She wanted herself and her son to be a part of this family more than anything else in the world, and so, at Molly’s invitation, she began to tell them her story.
When they had finished the meal, Kevin was only too ready to go to tell Ada what had happened to Bridgette. He had been fascinated by the story of Finn and Bridgette’s mother, Gabrielle, and as he got to his feet he said, ‘You know what? I thought when Mum and Dad died, there was just me and Molly and our granddad. Now we have relations coming out of the woodwork.’
‘Are you complaining about that then?’ Molly asked.
‘No.’ Kevin had a grin on his face. ‘I ain’t complaining. I think it’s great.’
‘So do I,’ Bridgette said. ‘I know exactly what you mean. I didn’t think that I had that many relations either.’
‘Well, I’m off to fetch some more,’ said Mark, as Kevin left and he slipped on his coat, but when he opened the door, he saw the rest of the Sullivans, the very ones he intended seeing, coming down the road.
‘Are you on your way out, Mark?’ Tom asked when they arrived at the door. ‘Can you wait on a moment? I have something to tell you.’
‘Molly has something to tell you too,’ said Mark, throwing open the door. ‘Come in. She has someone she’s dying for you to meet.’
Intrigued, led by Tom they went into the living room. Bridgette was standing with Finn in her arms, but before any of them were able to say anything Molly came through from the kitchen with cups of tea, saying as she did so. ‘Sorry it’s got to be tea. The only coffee we can get at the moment is not coffee at all. Aunt Isobel says it’s made with chicory and it’s liquid and pre-sweetened, not very nice at all really.’
Then she caught sight of her them all standing there and exclaimed, ‘What are you all doing here?’
‘We have come to see you to tell you some news, but unless I am very much mistaken, you already know it,’ Tom smiled.
‘Probably,’ Molly answered with a grin. She put the cups down on the coffee table and drew Bridgette forward. ‘Uncle Tom,’ she said, ‘this is my cousin Bridgette Laurent, née Sullivan, and her son, Finn.’
Tom thought of his young brother cut down before he had even cast his eyes on his own child and he knew Bridgette to be his because she had Finn’s mouth and his dark amber eyes. He stepped forward and, mindful of the child, put his arms around her. ‘You’re both welcome, my dear,
a thousand times welcome,’ he said in a voice husky with emotion. ‘I am your uncle Tom, or just Tom, as you prefer.’
It was such a genuine welcome, and Bridgette had the strangest feeling that she had come home. Then Tom lifted the baby from her arms and said, ‘And hallo to you, young fellow-me-lad.’ He was rewarded by a beaming grin. ‘You have a grand boy there,’ Tom said, handing the baby back to Bridgette. ‘And Finn is a fine name for him.’
‘Uncle Tom, you are taking this all in your stride,’ Molly said. ‘You are not even the tiniest bit surprised.’
‘Ah. But you see I knew about the existence of Bridgette,’ Tom said. He went on to tell Molly all that he had told the others. ‘Christy Byrne told me all this, but not until Mammy died,’ Tom said. ‘By then, though, so many years had passed we thought it better to say nothing. Finn’s child, who we knew was a girl and called Bridgette, would be fully grown and maybe married with other children and oblivious of her parentage. Anyway, by then the war was on and France was occupied. The first I heard of Bridgette afterwards was from a letter that she sent to Nellie McEvoy at the post office in Buncrana, and she forwarded it to me.’
‘How on earth did you know about Nellie?’ Molly asked Bridgette in surprise.
‘I didn’t,’ Bridgette said. ‘I wrote to Christy Byrne because it was the only full address I had. He’d written to tell Maman of my father’s death
when he realised that she hadn’t been told officially. When my mother made me promise on her death bed that I would search out the family, I thought of Christy straightaway. He said that the people at the post office might have an actual address for you all because you had been such good friends.’
‘We were and still are good friends,’ Molly said. ‘The McEvoys and Uncle Tom saved my sanity when I was sent to live in Buncrana after my parents died. Nellie was a substitute mother to me when I was in great need of one.’
A shadow passed over Molly’s face as she remembered that sad period in her life and then it was gone as she went on, with a glance at her husband, ‘If I can ever convince that man of mine to take some time off I would like to go back to Buncrana for a little holiday and see them all again.’
‘That would be a grand idea, Molly,’ Tom said approvingly.
‘Yeah, it would help lay some ghosts and be a chance to show Nuala off.’
‘She’s well worth showing off,’ Bridgette said. ‘She is very beautiful.’
‘She is,’ Aggie said. ‘But then so is your son with those big dark eyes.’
‘All I can say is that we are very pleased to know you at last,’ Tom said to Bridgette. ‘You and your son both.’
‘I echo that,’ Joe added. ‘I’m very glad you found
us in the end. As Tom said, you are very welcome. My name is Joe and this is my wife, Isobel, and my son, Ben.’
Bridgette was puzzled for surely Molly had told her that Joe had been married to someone called Gloria. Isobel’s greeted Bridgette warmly, but her eyes were on Finn and she exclaimed, ‘Aggie is right, he is a beautiful baby.’ She poked him gently in the stomach and said, ‘And I know one thing, Finn Laurent, you will break hearts one day with those dark eyes.’
‘His father’s were dark like that?’
‘And did he have those incredibly long lashes as well?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Bridgette said with a laugh. ‘Doesn’t seem fair, does it?’
Finn was passed from one to the other, as all exclaimed about his dark eyes, and the sociable baby waved his arms and giggled and thoroughly enjoyed the attention. Little Nuala watched it all with a furrowed frown between her eyes and Molly laughed and said, ‘Do her good to have a bit of competition.’
Ben, though, had noticed Bridgette’s confusion when she had been introduced to Isobel and he said to her, ‘Isobel isn’t my mom, though I call her mom sometimes, and other times I call her Izzy. My mother’s name was Gloria and she went to live in America with an American sailor. Dad says this summer I can go and see her for a whole month, and Kevin’s coming too. I’ve got a baby
sister called Rebecca, almost the same age as Nuala.’
Bridgette was shocked at Ben’s words, but she just said, ‘That will be wonderful. You must miss your mother very much.’
Ben nodded. ‘I used to miss her loads, but I’m used to it now, and Izzy is nearly as good as a proper mom.’ And then a cheeky grin spread over his face as he saw Molly approach and he added, ‘Kevin’s only got Molly. I’d rather have Izzy any day. She’s not half as strict as Molly.’
‘You, my lad, will get your ears boxed if you’re not careful,’ Molly said in mock indignation.
Ben gave Bridgette a wink and said, ‘See what I mean?’ and Bridgette had to bite on her bottom lip to prevent her smile.
‘He’s a cheeky monkey, all right,’ Molly said, watching Ben cross the room. ‘But to tell the truth, it’s nice to see him like that. He was once a very confused and unhappy boy.’
‘He said his mother lives in America,’ Bridgette said.
‘She does,’ Molly said. ‘When they were living in Buncrana, she fell for an American petty officer at the nearby naval base. Remember I said how much she hated Buncrana?’
‘Yes, but hating something doesn’t mean that you can go to America and leave your son behind,’ Bridgette said, appalled.
‘Ben was adamant that he didn’t want to go with her,’ Molly said. ‘He was actually on the ship
that would take them to New York and he jumped off before it sailed. He told Kevin that he couldn’t leave his dad behind, and knew that he had made the right decision, but he was angry that he had to make any decision at all. I don’t think he realised just how much he would miss his mother. Kevin, having lost his own mother at an even earlier age, helped him cope with that in the end. Anyway, now Joe has met Isobel and Ben thinks the world of her. They will be married when Joe is a free man and meanwhile they live together in a bungalow in Walmley, Sutton Coldfield.’ And then she added with a smile, ‘Shocking really what the older generation get up to. Come and meet Paul and Aggie.’
Again Bridgette was confused, and as she took Aggie’s hand she said, ‘Finn told my mother that you had disappeared when he was just a boy.’
‘And he was right,’ Aggie said. ‘All the family know my story. Even Ben has been told now and so it’s only right that you should too. I was forced to leave home because when I was fifteen I had been raped by a man called McAllister and was having his baby.’
‘I don’t know how it is in France,’ Molly said, ‘but in Ireland, the greatest sin in all the world is to be having a baby without a husband. And somehow it’s always the woman’s fault. This was 1901, and I imagine things were even worse then.’
‘It’s the same in France,’ Bridgette told her, and knew she had been sensible not to tell the truth
about Finn’s father. It would be sure to be viewed in a bad light because she was old enough to know what she was doing. She was, though, full of sympathy for the young Aggie as she suddenly remembered that Georges had nearly raped her when she was just a year older. ‘What a terrible thing to happen to you,’ she cried. ‘You were little more than a child. Wasn’t there anyone you could have confided in?’
‘He said if I told anyone he would say that I had instigated it, that I was more than willing.’
‘What a rat!’
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Aggie said. ‘And the dreadful thing is he would have been believed as well. Tom was the only one in the house when I came home that time and he helped me and we agreed to tell no one. But when I found out that I was pregnant I confronted McAllister and he sent me to his sister in Birmingham, who he said would sort me out. I was terrified because I’d never left home before, but I was even more scared of staying.’
Tom snorted. ‘I wasn’t scared. I was raging angry, especially when I realised that McAllister was going to get away scot-free. Then after Aggie disappeared, I saw McAllister riding out to one of the farms and, wanting to teach him a lesson, I stretched wire across trees where I knew the horse would run into it as he made his way home.’
‘Did it work?’
‘Oh yes, and far too well,’ Tom said. ‘McAllister
was thrown from his horse. He went sailing through the air and he hit his head on a tree and the blow killed him. McAllister’s wife had followed me and when I told her what her husband had done, she said Aggie wasn’t the first girl he had taken down, and so she helped me cover up the crime. Then, before the funeral, she wrote to his sister in Birmingham, informing her of her brother’s death but the letter was returned with “Not known at this address” written across it. I was so worried for I had no idea what had happened to Aggie.’
‘I obviously knew nothing of this,’ Aggie said. ‘But there was no one at the address when I arrived because the sister had moved.’
‘Oh God, what did you do?’
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ Aggie said. ‘I was desperate. I would have probably died had it not been for prostitutes who took me in and looked after me, particularly when I lost the baby. Living there, though, sealed my fate, and for years and years. I sank into their world of prostitution, because I couldn’t apply for anything more respectable without references and I owed the prostitutes loyalty and in time I took the drugs and drink they plied me with because it blurred the edges of what I was forced to do.’
‘It’s a dreadful tale,’ Bridgette said. ‘And I feel sorry for you too, Uncle Tom, having to carry such a burden.’
‘Yes,’ Molly said. ‘And one that prevented him marrying anyone. Uncle Tom, being the man he
is, holds himself totally responsible for McAllister’s death. So he has never even allowed himself to get close to anyone.’
‘It was safer that way,’ Tom said. ‘How could I risk the tale getting out? And yet I couldn’t keep such a thing from any woman I wished to marry. If it became known, the sacrifice Aggie made to save the family shame by leaving home before her pregnancy should be noticed would have been in vain. McAllister’s wife would have been in trouble too and if, because of my age at the time, I was spared the hangman’s noose, I would probably have been transported.’
‘This is awful,’ Bridgette said. She turned again to Aggie. ‘How did you escape in the end?’
‘I wasn’t on the streets straightaway,’ Aggie said. ‘I was taken as a paramour by one of the bosses of a club. They called it that, but really it was a posh name for a whore house. The manager wanted to marry me, but he was killed by an evil man called Finch. When I tried to break out of prostitution, he abducted me and forced me back into it. By the time I accidently bumped into Tom I was drink-sodden and addicted to the drugs Finch supplied me with. Tom weaned me off the drugs and hid me from those who were out to harm me.’
‘And what happened to the man Finch?’ Bridgette asked. ‘Was he ever brought to trial?’
‘Not through the official channels, no,’ Tom said with a slight smile.
‘I knew nothing of this until it was all over,’
Aggie said. ‘My brothers took matters into their own hands.’
‘We had to,’ Tom said. ‘Finch was rich and influential, and Aggie would be known as a street woman. If the police had agreed to take the case on, it would be laughed out of court. Anyway, she was too frightened of the man to testify.’
‘So?’
‘So, Joe and I tracked Finch down and Joe beat him up on a canal towpath.’
‘No more than he deserved,’ Bridgette said. ‘Did he kill him?’
‘No,’ Tom said. ‘He left him unconscious but alive on the towpath, but we had gone no distance when we heard a splash and running feet, and went back. Someone had heaved him into the canal and we watched him sink under the murky waters.’
‘I would say that he was no loss,’ Bridgette sighed.
‘I agree,’ Aggie said.
‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘And when we told Aggie that the man was finally dead, I saw the fear fall from her like she was shedding a skin she had lived with for years.’
‘And then she met Paul?’
‘Well, yes,’ Tom said. ‘Though Paul knew our family for some years before he met Aggie.’
‘He was an officer my father saved in the Great War,’ Molly said. ‘And Dad went to work with him afterwards. And then when Mum and Dad died I was taken to Buncrana to live.’