Till the Sun Shines Through (15 page)

‘D'you know what he's done?' Bridie said tearfully, holding the dress in her hands. ‘He's spoilt everything that went before. I loved him, I would have trusted him with my life, I loved him like I love Daddy. Sometimes, if I'm honest, a little more than Daddy, because he was more fun and always seemed to have more time to play with me than Daddy had.

‘Now that's ruined. I feel as if my life was a sham, my memories are tainted with what happened that night, and I'm so scared. I don't know what to do any more.'

‘Oh Bridie.' Tears were running down Mary's face.

‘What would you do in my place?' Bridie asked eventually and Mary shivered. She'd have hated to be in Bridie's position, and she had to admit, ‘I don't know, Bridie, but in the end I think I'd risk an abortion and to Hell with my immortal soul. What do celibate priests know anyway and yet they sit in moral judgement on the rest of us.'

Blasphemous words surely. Bridie wasn't prepared to blame the clergy for her predicament – only one person was at fault and she knew who that was and she'd hate him as long as she had breath in her body.

‘Can I think about it?' she asked Mary.

‘Surely you can,' Mary assured her. ‘This isn't something you can decide in a minute. D'you want another cup of tea?'

‘No,' Bridie said. ‘If you don't mind I'll go on up. I'm dead beat.'

It was a lie, but Bridie wanted to be out of the way when Eddie came in. She wanted to lay and think about the options open to her, limited though they were.

She lay on the mattress and listened to the children's even breathing and remembered her own secure and happy childhood, with the absolute love of her parents surrounding her like a warm cloak. She had believed as a child that, because of that love, nothing bad could ever happen to her. To Mary and Terry, she was the adored little sister, she had Rosalyn to play with and Frank to torment the pair of them, and Uncle Francis and Aunt Delia as surrogate parents, whose house was as familiar to Bridie as her own.

But then it had all changed … Stop thinking about it, she admonished herself sternly. Reliving it does no good. Solutions are what's needed.

She thought about the home that Mary had mentioned. She wasn't worried about the austere nature of it, or the work. God, had she ever balked at work? As for telling her she was sinful … Well, she'd keep her own counsel, but she wasn't the sinful one here.

But how could she keep the fact of where she was for months hidden from her mother? Wouldn't she think it strange if Bridie asked her letters to be sent to Mary? Wouldn't she ask what she was doing out in some obscure place that seemed to have no postal delivery?

Every way, the path was lined with thorns. She didn't feel she was having a baby, it was just like a leaden weight she carried in her stomach and she wished she could pluck it out and fling it far away from herself and her life.

Could she live with herself if she went through with an abortion though? But then could she live at all if she did nothing and had a bastard child, unloved, unwanted and stigmatised for ever?

She heard Eddie come in downstairs and Mary and Eddie talking together, the voices rising and falling too low for the words to be distinguishable, and lay, wide-eyed, in the bed, burning with shame at the imagined scene in the living room. She was no nearer sleep when she heard her sister and Eddie come up to bed, the rumble of voices continuing even then.

But they'd been stopped for some time when Bridie eventually fell into a fitful sleep. She dreamt that she was being prodded along a long dark corridor into a white-tiled room that was so bright, she had to shut her eyes for a moment against the brilliance of it.

When she opened them, she saw the bed: the only furniture in the room. A mighty push between the shoulder blades sent her sprawling across it and she turned and saw a priest standing beside her. He was dressed totally in black and had a baby in his arms, which he laid on the bed beside her, as he screamed, ‘Wickedness! Wickedness! You'll burn in Hell's flames.'

He placed a dagger in Bridie's hand.

‘Kill the child!' he commanded.

‘No! No!'

‘It's what you wanted to do. Hell's flames await you.'

Bridie let the dagger fall from her hand and it spiralled downwards and the blade pierced the baby's body. Blood spurted from the wound, a scarlet stream that soaked the sheet on which it lay. While Bridie looked at the child, horrified, the priest said in sombre tones, ‘You are a grave sinner, Bridie McCarthy, and now you will burn in Hell's flames for ever.'

And then suddenly Bridie was on the edge of an abyss and a raging fire burned below, the flames licking the rim of the hole. She swayed slowly over the edge and as she was hurtling towards the flames, she let out a blood-curdling scream.

‘Bridie, for God's sake.' She was aware of crying and then someone was shaking her. She opened her eyes blearily. Thank God, it had been a dream, a terrible, awful dream and the crying was from Mickey and Jamie who were staring at her in the light of the lamp Mary held, with eyes like saucers and tear trails on their cheeks. ‘What's wrong with the weans?'

‘You frightened them,' Mary said, lifting Mickey from his cot. ‘That scream you gave was loud enough to rouse the dead.'

‘Oh God, I'm sorry,' Bridie said, as Eddie came into the room to soothe Jamie. She was still shaking from fright and Mary asked sympathetically, ‘Was it a nightmare?'

‘Aye. Oh God, it was awful.'

‘Little wonder,' Mary said, and Jamie looked accusingly across at Bridie. ‘Why did you scream like that?' he demanded. ‘You woke me up, you did.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Mickey was scared.'

‘And so were you,' Mary said, but in a low voice for Mickey hadn't woken fully and was going drowsy again as she rocked him in her arms.

‘I was not!'

‘Keep your voice down,' Mary hissed. ‘Mickey wants to go back to sleep.'

‘I don't,' Jamie stated and he looked at his father full in the face. ‘I'm not a bit tired anymore.'

Eddie gave a quiet chuckle. ‘That's too bad, old man,' he said. ‘Because I'm exhausted. I'm away to my bed now and you're to lie down in yours and go back to sleep.'

‘But …'

‘But nothing,' Mary interrupted with a sharp whisper as she laid Mickey down again. ‘Lie down this minute and we'll have no more nonsense.'

Jamie, with a huge exaggerated sigh, threw himself down in the bed. ‘I won't sleep,' he declared.

‘Well, stay awake then,' Mary retorted. ‘But be quiet about it for if you wake Mickey up again, I'll brain you.'

Bridie was still sitting up in her bed and Mary doubted that, while Jamie's claim that he'd never sleep was a false one, Bridie would close her eyes again that night. ‘Come on downstairs,' she said to her. ‘Give the wee ones time to get off. We'll have a drop of tea to settle you.'

‘Oh no, Mary,' Bridie said. ‘You must be tired out, I'll be fine. Go on down.'

‘No, I'm grand so I am,' Mary said. ‘Eddie needs his bed, he has work tomorrow, but I'm grand. Come on now.'

Bridie was glad to follow her sister, for she knew she'd be too afraid to sleep left alone.

The room downstairs was in darkness and like an icebox. Mary lit the gas lamps and poked up the fire, banked with slack for safety, and threw on some nuggets of coal before putting the kettle on to boil.

‘Soon be warm,' she told her sister, who was still shivering from the cold as well as her bad dream. ‘And a drop of tea puts new heart in a body.'

It did too, Bridie agreed just a little later, as she warmed her hands on the cup and let the heat from the fire, now blazing merrily, toast her cold tense body. She felt sufficiently calmer to tell Mary of the nightmare.

‘Abortion is murder plain and simple,' Bridie said after she'd recounted the awful details to Mary, ‘I didn't need a nightmare to show me that. But if I think about the other option, I know I could not go through with it. I was so ashamed when I knew you were telling Eddie. How could I cope with others watching me and judging me with my belly stuck out and no wedding ring on my finger?

‘So, though I don't go against the Church's teachings lightly, or the law of the land, I've still decided on going for an abortion, Mary – it is the only way forward for me.'

Mary let her breath out slowly so that Bridie couldn't see her relief. After the horrific nightmare she'd described, Mary wasn't at all sure which way Bridie would jump. Abortion was known to be dangerous but, Mary thought, the only answer and she vowed she'd pray to Jesus and his Virgin Mother to keep Bridie safe.

Three days after Bridie had arrived in Birmingham, Aunt Ellen minded the boys for Mary. She thought Mary was taking Bridie to the Bull Ring, but instead they were making for a house in Varna Road, to see a woman called merely Mrs M, who'd promised to cure Bridie's ‘little problem' with no trouble at all, if someone had ten pounds to pay her with.

Bridie insisted on paying. She had plenty of money still in the knotted handkerchief and she didn't want Mary to pay any more out for her. Eddie, while thankfully in work when so many weren't, wasn't paid much and she had no wish to be a financial drain on them. ‘When this is all behind me, I'll get a job and pay for my keep,' she promised Mary as they alighted from the swaying tram.

Mary just smiled. After Bridie had told her of her decision, she'd contacted Ivy O'Farrel, three doors up, who'd found herself pregnant with her tenth child when she couldn't feed or clothe the nine she had. Her man had been out of work for five years, and to try and rear another child on the pittance she had to manage on each week had filled her with panic.

She'd said not a word to her husband but, pawning her wedding ring for the money, had stolen away one day to Mrs M when her husband had taken himself back to Ireland to bury his mother. Some neighbour women were the only ones she'd told. They'd looked after her, cared for her children, and kept their mouths shut about both. Mary had been one of these in the know and so Ivy was the one she confided in about Bridie's problem. Ivy had made all the arrangements.

‘Best get rid of the old man for the night,' Ivy had said. ‘She can hardly share the attic with the kids. And you'd best cover you mattress with summat – I bled like a stuck pig.'

God! What was she letting her little sister do? Mary thought. What if something went wrong? What if she should die? Oh God, she'd want to die herself.

‘What's the matter?' Bridie said, bringing Mary's thoughts back to the present. Mary gave herself a mental shake. No way could she let Bridie have a hint of the doubts swarming through her mind. ‘Nothing,' she said. ‘I'm just a bit nervous.'

‘You're a bit nervous,' Bridie cried incredulously. ‘I'm bloody terrified, if you want the truth.'

Mary wasn't surprised, though she said nothing, and she linked her arm with Bridie's and gave her a squeeze.

Mrs M was a tall, rather gaunt woman. Her grey hair, scraped back into a bun, made her face tight and strained, her eyes almost slanted, her nose pinched, her lips thin and hollows in each of the ruddy-coloured cheeks. Bridie smiled at her nervously while thinking she had a neck as wrinkled as a turkey cock and said, ‘I'm …'

‘I don't need to know who you are, where you live, or anything about you,' said Mrs M in a thin, sharp voice. ‘Brought the money?'

Bridie nodded and held out the notes, which Mrs M held to the light before accepting them. ‘Now,' she said, more amenably, ‘how far on you are?'

‘Two months,' Bridie said. ‘At least I've missed two periods now, but my third would be due now any day.'

Mrs M nodded. ‘Good,' she said. ‘Should be a piece of cake. Some silly buggers leave it too late. Daren't risk it then, see?'

Bridie said nothing and Mrs M turned to Mary. ‘You with her?'

‘Yes, I'm her sister.'

‘Don't need to know that. Don't need to know anything other than the facts. Safer that way, see?'

‘Yes. I'm sorry.'

‘Don't matter,' Mrs M said. ‘I'm glad the poor bugger's got someone with her. Wait here,' she indicated the room she'd ushered them into, ‘and I'll take your sister upstairs.'

Bridie followed behind the woman's tall figure as she led her from the room and mounted the stairs. With her heart in her mouth she entered the bedroom.

The woman pulled a screen towards her and said, ‘Take your clothes off behind here from the waist down and lie on the bed. There's a blanket to cover yourself with.'

Bridie did as the woman told her, but as she lay on the rubber sheet on top of the bed, she began to tremble from head to foot.

‘Scared?'

Bridie was startled; she hadn't heard the woman come back into the room. She nodded.

‘No need,' Mrs M told her. ‘Done this hundreds of times. And I'm clean. I've just been to scrub my hands. You get some dirty bitches in this business.'

Bridie watched her fearfully. She had her teeth clamped tight together to prevent them chattering and her insides were turning somersaults. ‘Bring your knees up, darling,' Mrs M told Bridie. ‘Relax now, 'cos I'm going to have a feel around inside you.'

Bridie's eyes widened in horror and shock. ‘Don't look like that, duck,' Mrs M said, ‘got to feel where to put the bleeding knitting needle.'

‘Knitting needle?' Bridie repeated in a voice that trembled with fear.

‘Where were you born?' Mrs M said scornfully. ‘You want rid of a baby, right?' And at Bridie's brief nod, she said, ‘Well, how the Hell did you think I was going to get rid of it – sing it a bleeding lullaby?'

‘I don't know, I didn't think.'