Till the Sun Shines Through (41 page)

‘Ah God!'

‘God's no help in this war,' Mary said bitterly. ‘I think we've got to help ourselves. And this has decided me. My boy could be on the mortuary slab – he just missed it by a hair's whisker. As soon as he's out of that place and able to hobble about, I want him to go home to Mammy and Daddy and safety.'

‘Good,' said Ellen. ‘Even Jay is a child yet. And they'll all give Jimmy a hand, if he shows them how.'

Bridie smiled. ‘One thing Daddy always had was patience,' she said. ‘I'll make arrangements as soon as the ticket office opens for all of the children to go. The children won't be going in to school today; they couldn't cope with it after hardly any sleep last night and anyway they have nothing to wear. You'll have to explain to them at work too.'

‘God, Bridie, will you listen to me? There is no more work for me, you or any other bloody body. The factories have gone up in smoke like the rest of the bloody city.' And then Mary covered her face with her hands and cried as if her heart would break.

‘You need some sleep,' Ellen said, helping Mary to her feet. ‘Go on up to the attic. I've made it as comfy as I can with the rugs and eiderdowns to lie on and there's plenty of blankets.'

Mary allowed herself to be led to the door to the stairs, but Bridie, though her smarting eyes were gritty with fatigue, refused to go. ‘I need to get things done before I sleep,' she said, and Ellen didn't argue.

‘I'll take Sam some breakfast later,' she told Bridie. ‘It's early yet.' It was early, not quite half past seven, though it felt much later and Ellen went on, ‘There'll be nowhere open yet. Why don't we have a wee bit of breakfast before the children are up and at us?'

Bridie shook her head. ‘I couldn't eat it, Aunt Ellen. I was glad of the tea though. It revived me. I think I should go along to the factory first.'

‘But it's down, Mary told you that.'

‘Aye, I know,' Bridie said. ‘But there's bound to be someone about.' Added to the worry of the raids, trying to keep the children safe and the thought of poor Jay in hospital, was the thought of Peggy McKenna carrying out her threat if she didn't have a pound for her that week. If she wrote the dreaded letter after the children had gone to live in Ireland, the shame would rebound on them too. It didn't bear thinking about. If her and Mary's old jobs were gone, she'd have to find a new one, and quickly, just as soon as she made sure the children were safe.

Bridie found the factory just as Mary had said, with men and women milling around in a quandary, not knowing what to do. She talked with some of them, but so far no one knew anything. She also found quite a few of her fellow workers had been bombed out the previous night and had lodged in a variety of places. A fair number were taking themselves to the council offices to see if they'd made arrangements for the bombed out and homeless. ‘We need clothes as well,' said a young woman about Bridie's age. ‘All we have, my two children and myself, is what we are standing up in.'

Bridie was the same: her clothes were only fit for the rag bin, her coat had a rip right down the side of it, and her lisle stockings had been in such a state she'd thrown them into Ellen's fire and came out barelegged. Her dress and cardigan beneath her coat were grey with dust. Dust was everywhere, swirling and gusting about them in the dark November morning so that you smelt it in your nose, tasted in your mouth, on your lips and the back of the throat. ‘Come with us,' the young woman said.

‘I might later,' Bridie said. ‘Now I have to make arrangements to go across to Ireland to see my parents and ask if they'll care for my children and my two nephews while the bombings are so bad.'

‘Don't blame you, ducks. No place for kids this,' another woman said.

‘But not everyone's got relatives in safe places,' the first woman retorted. ‘And what's safe about sending your children to live with strangers?'

‘I couldn't have done that either,' Bridie said soothingly. ‘In fact I don't like the thought of them living so far away, but … Well, after last night.'

‘You do right, lass. Will your hubby mind?'

‘No,' Bridie was able to say definitively. ‘He'll be all for it. He was at me to send them at the beginning.'

‘Yeah, mine's the same,' put in another woman. ‘Says he has enough to worry over as it is without fretting over my safety, or the kids. You're not coming then?'

‘No, not yet. Once I get some money out of the post office, I'm off to New Street to see how soon I can go.'

‘New Street Station was hit,' a man called across. ‘My brother's a signal man. Says it's closed.'

‘The ticket part might be open though,' someone said. ‘And they'll have the trains up and running before you know where you are, mark my words.'

Bridie hoped he was right. In any case, she made her way to the post office. It was half past eight and she didn't mind the wait till nine; she wanted to be first in the queue. She didn't know what to do about Peggy McKenna though. There was nothing she could do until she had the children safely in Ireland. Then, she imagined, she'd get another job quickly enough. Anyway, the safety of the children was her paramount concern. She'd have to take the risk that Peggy would hold off telling anyone straightaway, thereby cutting off her source of easy money.

‘You'd not think to take the children with you?' Ellen said when Bridie told her she was leaving for Ireland the next day. ‘Surely Sarah would not turn them away? Didn't Mary tell me that when you were over for the funeral that time your daddy told the two of you you'd be welcome?'

‘Aye,' Bridie said. ‘Daddy did and that's the point, isn't it?'

‘What is?'

‘Mammy said nothing. God, Aunt Ellen, she loathes me still,' Bridie cried. ‘She was barely polite. I wouldn't ask her to look after the children at all if I were not desperate, but their safety is more important than my pride. I'll get down on my knees to Mammy if I have to.'

‘I see that, girl, but surely to God she wouldn't refuse to have them?'

‘She might well,' Bridie said. ‘You didn't see how she was with me. I couldn't just foist them on her. It would be another black mark against me that she could make the children suffer for later.'

‘She wouldn't do that, not to weans.'

‘To mine she could,' Bridie assured her aunt. ‘She didn't even glance at the photographs I took. She asked nothing about them at all and if Daddy did, she got up and began making tea, or clattering crockery, making it quite clear she wasn't interested really in anything I had to say.'

‘But it would be different now, I mean the war hadn't begun then,' Ellen said. ‘It was just a rumour, good rumour, but now with the bombs and all …'

‘That's what I'm banking on,' Bridie said. ‘I'll tell her how bad it is. I'll make her see.'

‘And what if there is a heavy raid while you're away?' Ellen asked. ‘Have you thought of that?'

‘Of course I have,' Bridie said. ‘It's the one thing that terrifies me. I know you and Mary will see to the children and keep them as safe as you're able to, but God, I will worry all the time I'm away. I can't think of doing anything else though. At least, this way, in a few days time, they'll be completely out of it – I'll not leave until I have Mammy's agreement.

‘I could write, I've thought of that,' Bridie went on. ‘But a letter would take too long and she'd probably not answer anyway. I mean after the funeral, though she was so bad with me, Mary said maybe I'd broken the ice and to try writing to Mammy again. I did, you know how many times, and you know too that she didn't put pen to paper to reply, not even the once, and if you mentioned me in your letters she never commented on anything you said.

‘She acts as though I don't exist and because of me that my children don't exist either. How then can I just arrive with them beside me?'

‘No, you're right – the only way is to actually go and plead with her. I can understand how you feel, Bridie,' Ellen said. ‘That sister of mine has put you through it over the years.'

‘It isn't totally her fault,' Bridie said. ‘She doesn't know the full story.'

‘Well, we'll keep it that way,' Ellen said. ‘Now let's start on these clothes for you. We can't have you go to home in these rags you have on.'

While Bridie had been out, Ellen had sorted through clothes of hers and Sam's that could be altered to fit Bridie and Mary, or cut down to make things for the children, and the two sat and cut and pinned and sewed as the house began to rouse itself, as first the children, and then Mary, came downstairs.

Bridie began to yawn as the afternoon wore on and eventually Mary persuaded her to have a rest before tea.

However, Bridie had only just dropped off when she was woken again by the siren piercing the night. With a heavy groan she got up and dressed and grabbing up the quilts and blankets, she hauled them down the stairs after her. She looked in on Ellen, knowing she wouldn't leave Sam. ‘D'you want anything?'

Sam smiled a wan smile and shook his head, while Ellen said, ‘All we want is to see you safe down in the cellar. Go on now. Stop wasting time.'

Bridie handed her sister the quilts to settle the children on and Mary said, ‘We'll have to take our chance with the gas and stay here – the other shelters are too far away to get to.'

Bridie nodded and hoped that the children hadn't got to take that risk for long.

After the previous night, everyone was nervous, but though the raid went on for some hours and some of the bombs fell remarkably close, close enough to make the children jump and cling to their mother, the raid lacked the intensity of the one before.

It strengthened Mary and Bridie's resolve, though, that the children must be moved to a place of safety and as quickly as possible.

The next morning, Bridie bought a
Birmingham Post
as she passed the paper shop in Bristol Street on her way to the station. It was not surprising that so much damage had been done, Bridie thought, when she read in the paper that three-hundred and fifty bombers had attacked Birmingham on the 19
^th
November, the first of them dropping flares and incendiaries to light up the targets. Nine major factories had been hit that night, and many smaller factories had been targeted too. It was a severe blow, for all the factories had been working for the war effort in one way or another.

The city centre had been gutted, few areas escaping some form of damage either from bombs, parachute mines or incendiaries, and many of the major department stores were no longer standing.

Bridie was used to craters, disruption and mounds of rubble, but the extent of the destruction of Birmingham shocked her. When this war is eventually over, she thought, what in God's name will be left?

She was glad though that, despite the bombing and destruction at the station, trains were still in operation: people had been working hard all that day to repair tracks and clear blockages and most regular trains, including the boat train from London to Liverpool, were working as normal.

The train was already in and she climbed aboard and lay back against the train seat. She was more than just tired: every bone ached and her eyes smarted and felt as if they had grit in them. She dreaded the ferry trip on that cold and windswept day, certain she would be as sick as a dog.

She wasn't disappointed and when she alighted from the rolling ferry, she felt light-headed with hunger and lack of sleep and her stomach ached from vomiting. She was thinner than ever and her face looked gaunt, as white as lint and lined with strain. Her two eyes were like pools of anxiety standing out, ringed with red and with black bags beneath them.

And this was the picture Sarah saw that evening as she looked up from the hearth and saw her daughter standing by the door. She took in other things: the ill-fitting coat and the lack of gloves, scarf and hat on such a raw day and, glory be to God, bare legs stuck into shoes that had seen much better days. Resentment and anger towards Bridie faded at that moment, for this was her child and in need, desperate need by the look of her. ‘Mammy,' Bridie said plaintively, for she was near collapse, and Sarah ran across the room and enfolded her daughter with her own good arm, shocked at her thinness.

‘Dear God, what ails you?' Sarah said, drawing Bridie towards the chair by the fire and automatically hanging the kettle on the hook above it.

‘Oh, Mammy,' Bridie said again, and she put her head in her hands and wept. She wept for the fear and helplessness she'd felt and the worry and the strain of the last few days. Sarah didn't urge her to stop, or ask her what the matter was. She had the feeling that Bridie needed to cry, hadn't done enough of it, being brave in front of the children most likely, and that she had reached breaking point.

Bridie's sobs were easing and she felt the strain seeping from her. When she raised her head, her cheeks were wet, tear trails running down them, and her eyes brighter than ever, but the heart-rendering sobs had stopped.

‘D'you want to tell me about it, Bridie?' Sarah said, for though her anxiety was primarily for the state Bridie was in, she wondered what had induced it. Was something wrong with Ellen maybe, or Mary, or, God forbid, one of the children.

But before Bridie was able to answer, Jimmy bounced through the door. There was no other word for it, but bounced. He'd been checking the stock in the fields when a neighbour had hailed him and told him he'd seen a girl, the spit of their Bridie, alighting from the rail bus just a few minutes before. Jimmy had known the man was not codding him; no one would over such a matter. ‘Was she alone?' he had asked.

‘Aye, I saw none with her,' the man had said. ‘And she only had the one bag.'

Dear God! Fear had run like ice in Jimmy's veins, for though he longed to see Bridie, he wondered what had brought her alone, headlong from Birmingham. He had thanked the neighbour, called to the dogs and almost ran back to the cottage.