Till the Sun Shines Through (55 page)

‘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.

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.'

‘Aye, I see that.'

‘It could be the saving of you too.'

‘What?'

‘Darling girl,' Sarah said, grasping her hands. ‘There is no need for you to stay in Birmingham now. There is no home for Tom to return to, no Ellen, Sam or Mary to fret over. Come home here with your children. We have a more than adequate home and plenty to love them and provide for them.'

Bridie was stunned. She'd been so worn down with sadness and desperation, she'd not seen the solution that her mother held out to her. ‘Oh, Mammy, do you mean it?'

‘Of course I mean it,' Sarah said. ‘I haven't mentioned it to your father, but I know he'd jump at the chance of having you live here again and he'd love to get to know your weans.'

‘Will you tell him about Francis?' Bridie asked. ‘The things I told you yesterday?'

‘I must tell him, darling girl,' Sarah said gently. ‘I can't keep such things from him. But don't worry, you'll not be blamed.'

‘Oh Mammy, how can you be so sure? He loved Francis so.'

‘And he loves you more,' Sarah reminded her. ‘He knew what manner of man Francis was. Such a thing cannot be kept quiet in a small place and I know he spoke about it to Francis more than once. But never in his wildest dreams did he imagine Francis would violate his own niece.' Sarah thought for a moment and added, ‘Did he do the same to Mary? I only ask because she believed you so readily.'

‘Aye,' Bridie said with a sigh. ‘I'd have denied it if Mary had survived that raid, because that would be what she wanted. It wasn't rape, or anything like it, just touching and … well, you know. It was around the time that Sally McCormack's father named Francis as the father of her unborn child. He denied it, Mary said, and was believed because Sally was just a gypsy brat, though no one expected her to drown herself.

‘Anyway, Mary told Francis she'd shout out what he'd done to her if he didn't stop and then questions might be asked about Sally McCormack and she frightened him into leaving her alone.'

‘Dear God, girl, I feel so ashamed that we weren't aware of it.'

‘It began the summer after Robert and Nuala died, Mammy,' Bridie said. ‘Neither you or Daddy were in any fit state to notice anything. I was just wee, but I can remember how lonely I was. I remember telling Mary once that you were both still there, but it was like there was nothing inside you. Mary knew what I meant. Without her, and Rosalyn too, of course, I'd have been worse. When I thought my children were dead, I understood, probably for the first time, the intense grief you and Daddy were going through. I wanted to die too and had no time or understanding for either Tom or Eddie.'

‘I know, girl,' Sarah said. ‘But things will be different now and for all of you, please God. Through my own stiff-necked attitude, we never knew your children and yet we grieved for them too. Now, you pull up the blankets around you for the morning is bitter. I'll wet the tea for your father and Willie and bring you a cup in, all right?'

‘I'll get up, Mammy.'

‘Let me do this for you,' Sarah said. ‘I feel I won't live long enough to make it up to you.'

‘I don't want any of that sort of talk,' Bridie said sharply. ‘You owe me nothing, but it you want to bring me a cup of tea in bed, I won't stop you, just this once.'

With her mother gone, Bridie lay back and thought about the proposal she'd been offered. She'd be happy to live back in Ireland again; she'd not been like Rosalyn. She'd found the workload heavy, but she'd never really wanted to leave and she'd love to rear her children in a place like this. She knew Tom would have no objection, at least through the war years. After it, they'd discuss the future together.

However, there was one stumbling block. How could she force the orphanage to release her children? Dr Havering claimed they were too sick to leave and she couldn't stand against medical opinion. Anyway, he could be right, must be right. Why would he say it if wasn't true? And she had to admit Katie hadn't been overjoyed to see her that time she'd spotted her through the fence. Her reaction had been anything but normal then. But now there was a lifeline held out to her, to the children. She sipped her tea and fantasised about them, happy, fit and healthy, running the fields as she'd done as a child, and knew she needed help and advice if her fantasies had any chance of coming true.