A Kiss and a Promise (10 page)

‘I think she’s the image of her dad,’ she announced flatly. ‘By the looks of you, you’re a Bennett yourself, so you’ll know that none of them’s got red hair, but the young soldier who used to take Stella out whenever he was home, he had fiery red hair.’

Michael took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Who – who was he?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘I mean what were his name? Where can I find him?’

‘I dunno as I remember his full name,’ the girl said doubtfully. ‘It were a short sort of name; he were a lieutenant. But you can’t get in touch with him because he were killed only a couple of months before Armistice Day. And what’s to become of the baby I can’t imagine,’ she ended.

Michael stared at the occupant of the perambulator, trying to see some resemblance to Stella, but could discern no such thing. Was it possible that the baby had somehow been changed so that some other woman had their baby, his and Stella’s, and his poor love had been landed with this weird-looking, redheaded brat? For now that he looked hard at the baby, he thought it was very odd-looking indeed. Its wide eyebrows had an upward tilt and the corners of its eyes were tilted up too. Its skin was so pale that he could clearly see the blue veins at its temples and though the nose was just the usual little dab of putty, when it suddenly smiled at him he saw that its mouth, too, had an upward tilt, giving it an elfin look.

‘It ain’t …’ Michael hastily shut his mouth on what would have been an unforgivable remark, but now that he had seen the child – Ginny, was it – he was sure that it was not of his getting. He could not imagine for one moment that Stella had played him false, gone with another man. He thought that perhaps their baby had died and Mrs Bennett – or even Lizzie – had begged, borrowed or stolen another baby from somewhere and managed to convince Stella that it was her own child. But he did not mean to say anything until he had had a good, long think, so he helped the girl to pick up her messages and went on his way. He would go down to the docks and sort out what was to become of him in the next few weeks and when that was settled, he would decide what was best to do.

Michael had thought long and hard all that afternoon whilst hanging about in the shipping offices, signing a great many papers and listening to a great many people telling him that they had not yet sorted out what would happen next to the survivors of shipwrecked vessels. Since Michael had only joined for the duration he was, theoretically, free to go home, but if he did so he would lose several months’ pay, and even in his eagerness to escape from Victoria Court he realised that this would not be fair to anyone, including himself.

Since George had been so pressing, Michael was still sleeping under the Bennetts’ roof, though the funeral had taken place a week ago, and he was becoming increasingly eager to move on. He had never quite dared to voice his opinion that Ginny was no get of his for not only was it an insult to Stella, but he could see that George would take it sadly amiss. The older man was huge and at the mere breath of such a suggestion would doubtless beat Michael to a pulp. And I wouldn’t blame him, Michael told himself. If anyone else tried to speak evil of my mammy, then I’d beat them to a pulp meself.

And what of Gwen Murrell’s remarks about the redheaded soldier who had visited Stella when he was home on leave? He now knew the girl’s name, though he had made very sure that he did not encounter her again. It was pretty obvious that she had never told the Bennetts of her suspicions and equally obvious that they had not told her that Michael himself was the supposed father of the child. In fact the more he thought about the whole situation, the more he longed to get away, back to Kerry where he belonged. In the end, a fortnight after he had first returned to Liverpool, he talked the whole thing over with his friend Toby, who had been picked out of the sea by the frigate
Viola
only an hour or so before Michael’s own rescue.

It was a couple of days after Christmas and the two young men were sitting in the pale December sunshine on a wooden bench in Sefton Park, watching a nanny and her two small charges throwing bread for the ducks. ‘Sure and I wouldn’t even dream of suggesting that this redheaded soldier meant anything to Stella,’ Michael explained. ‘The truth is, she was so innocent that – that she might have not realised … oh, hang it, I won’t believe she slept with anyone else, not if she’d left me with half a dozen redheaded babies! But Toby, what am I to do? I can’t stay here, I’ve got to go back to my people in Kerry. I’m willing to send money back to Mrs Bennett but I can’t, and won’t, take that kid back to me mammy and try to pretend it’s mine when, in my heart, I have such doubts.’

‘D’you think it’s a changeling? One of them pixicated kids what the fairies change over in their cradles?’ Toby asked, only half-jokingly. ‘To be frank, old feller, you’ve got two choices, unless you fancy it were the Angel Gabriel what fathered little Ginny! Either she’s yourn, or she ain’t. If she is, then you surely can’t deny her, and if she ain’t, then you cut and run, with my blessing at any rate.’

‘What if I pay? An allotment, like, same as we did in the Navy? I’d send it straight to the old girl, so she could buy extra food and that when the kid gets bigger,’ Michael said desperately. ‘If she were mine – if she looked like me – then I suppose I’d have to take her back home and me mammy would be landed with the task of bringing her up. If she were a boy now, I reckon I could cope …’

‘But she doesn’t and she ain’t,’ Toby interrupted. ‘Have you told Mrs Bennett that you don’t think the kid’s yours? Or George?’

‘No, and I’m not going to,’ Michael said, suddenly realising that he had made up his mind and was really only asking Toby for his opinion in the hope that his friend would think as he did. ‘I shan’t have to tell George anything because his ship sailed yesterday and all I need tell Mrs Bennett, surely, is that I’m going to send money for the kid. It ain’t as if me and Stella managed to get married, because we didn’t. Mammy and Daddy are too old to get landed wi’ a baby and we live a long way from the nearest village. Bringing up a baby out there would be terrible hard. I’d do me best but it wouldn’t work. No, little Virginia’s best off here, living with her gran, and I dare say, when Stella’s brothers marry, their wives will give a hand. So I’ll get myself a berth aboard an Irish ferry just as soon as I can.’

‘Are you going to tell Mrs Bennett that you’re leaving?’ Toby asked suspiciously. ‘I think you should, old feller.’

‘I will,’ Michael promised. But next day, when he told Stella’s mother that his contract with the Royal Navy was finished and he would be returning to Ireland, he managed to make it sound as though he would be back in Liverpool as soon as he’d settled things with his parents. Certainly the old lady had no idea that Michael was planning to abandon his child to her tender mercies. As it was, she waved him off quite happily and it was not until several days later that she realised he had not given her an address.

‘But these bleedin’ Irish are all the same; they come up from the bog, scarce able to talk the King’s English, and probably don’t even know what an address is,’ she said disgustedly to a neighbour, as the two of them queued outside a greengrocer’s shop. ‘Mind you, he ain’t all bad. He left me three quid, for the kid I suppose, but milk only costs a few pence, and she don’t want anythin’ else yet. And I dare say he’ll gerrin touch afore the money runs out,’ she finished.

When Michael had left Liverpool, it had been cold and grey, and when the ferry deposited him in Dublin it was cold and grey still, yet to Michael there was a softness in the air which he had not noticed in the city of Liverpool. It cost him a pang to look around at the bustling streets of Dublin, however, because he had thought he would be bringing Stella here, proudly showing her his country’s capital city. As it was, he looked around him with only moderate interest. If Stella had been alive, he would have considered trying to find a job in Dublin, but now there was simply no point. City living was not for him, never had been. Now, all his thoughts were centred on the farm in Kerry which he had not seen for so long.

He had been paid off by the Navy, and because his wages had been so overdue he had collected a tidy sum, so he could have caught a train, which would have taken him home in a matter of hours. Instead, he decided to tramp it. He knew he would get lifts from time to time because his fellow countrymen were always anxious to help one another, and once he was on the road he was glad he had taken the decision to walk. The first person to stop for him was a baker, driving out to replenish his stocks of a certain type of wheat flour. The baker was a talkative little man and when Michael was afoot once more, he knew most of what there was to know about Mr Flanagan, his seven children and his ingenious little wife who made all their clothes and kept the house spotless, yet worked in the bakery six days a week.

Despite the fact that it was still winter, it was mild enough for Michael to creep into a haystack on one occasion when darkness found him far from the nearest village or farm, but apart from that he found someone willing to give him a bed every night. He always offered to pay but when they discovered that he was a sailor and had been fighting the Huns, they assured him that payment was not necessary; they were glad to do their bit for such a one as he.

It took him two weeks to cross the country and all that time he was in a fever to get home. He could not forget Stella, did not want to forget her, but in the back of his mind he believed that once he was home again, the pain of loss would diminish and the recollection of her lovely face and sweet, gentle ways would gradually fade. So when he found himself walking up the narrow lane, with steep banks on either side, that led to his home, his heart gave a bound of joy. He would return to his old life and his old ways, look to his parents and old friends for companionship and start to forget the misery of the war and the worse misery of losing Stella.

He rounded the corner of the lane and there was the cottage. It had not changed at all. The white cob walls were kept clean by the salt-laden breeze coming off the sea, which was only a matter of twenty or thirty yards from the end of their orchard, and the thatched roof overhung the windows like the shaggy hair overhanging the eyes of an old English sheepdog. Because of the strong winds which drove inshore from the Atlantic, the thatch was criss-crossed with ropes which were attached to boulders and it was this alone, during winter gales, which kept the thatch in place. As it was January, a thread of blue smoke came from the chimney and there was no one working in the garden. It was a fine day, however, the pale blue sky arching overhead, so probably Michael’s daddy would be out in his fishing boat and his mammy occupied within doors.

Michael raised his hand to the latch and was halfway through the small wicket gate when something whacked him in the back with such ferocity that he nearly fell over. Even as he turned to see who – or what – had hit him, he knew. It was old Dan, his father’s sheepdog, and one of his own best friends, for boy and dog had spent many hours together as Michael roamed the woods, meadows and coastline, searching for gulls’ eggs, collecting blackberries or nuts, or sitting patiently on the rocks and casting out a line in the hope that some fat and foolish fish would take his bait.

The dog was yelping with excitement, jumping up and trying to lick Michael’s face, and when Michael put both arms round him and lifted him off his feet he was in ecstasy, licking Michael’s countenance so thoroughly that not an inch of it remained dry.

‘Well, so that’s what all the fuss was about! You’ve had your turn, Danny, now leave the boy alone so’s he can give his old mammy a great big hug.’

Unnoticed, Maeve Gallagher had emerged from the cottage and now stood no more than a few feet away, beaming. She was a thin and wiry woman of medium height, grey-haired, and with the seamed and sunburned face of one who spent as much time outdoors as in. Michael, who had not seen her for more than two years, felt his heart contract with love. She was grand, was his mammy – he wondered how he could have stayed away from her for so long. He put the dog down carefully, then gave his mother a hard hug, wondering why on earth he had thought that she would be unsympathetic towards the child Stella had borne. She was smiling with pleasure now, urging him inside the cottage, saying that they had a deal of catching up to do and might as well begin at once. ‘Your daddy’s taken the
Orla
out to see if he can get a few fish,’ she explained. ‘Oh, Michael, sure and it’s wonderful to see you home again, safe and sound, after the terrible time you’ve had. But I’m that sorry about your young lady. You didn’t say much in your letter but I know you thought a great deal of her. Do you want to tell me about it, son, or is it still too new, too raw?’

‘You would have loved her, Mammy,’ Michael said huskily. ‘She wasn’t just beautiful, she was gentle and kind. I think she would have taken to country livin’ like a duck to water, but it wasn’t to be.’

‘Your letter said flu and we’ve heard, since you wrote, that the disease is sweeping the whole of Europe,’ his mother said. She gestured him to sit down at the table and went over to where the kettle hung on a chain above the peat fire, a thin thread of steam coming from it. ‘But you’ll be wantin’ a nice cup o’ tay and a piece of buttered brack before you do anything else.’ As she spoke, she was pouring water into the big brown pot into which she had already tipped a tiny spoonful of tea leaves. ‘You’ve come home at the hungriest time o’ year, Michael me love, which means there’s not a great deal of work waitin’ to be done and I think that’s a good thing. After what you’ve been through, rest and quiet and your own folk round you is what you’ll be needin’ most.’

Michael, agreeing contentedly, bit into the brack, then took a drink of his tea. It
was
good to be home, he told himself, and everything here would be homemade from the brack itself to the big calico apron which his mother always wore in the house. They were too far from the nearest town – and too poor – to buy when they could make and Mammy’s brack and her lovely stews and bread and apple pies were a great deal tastier than those which Mrs Bennett bought from her local shops.