Till the Sun Shines Through (52 page)

‘She's dead herself now,' she said. ‘But with her dying breath she told me that “God will have his revenge.” Rosalyn, the woman was evil.' But she wasn't the only one; Francis too had been evil and whatever else he'd been he was still Rosalyn's father. She lowered her head and muttered, ‘I'm sorry, Rosalyn.'

Rosalyn lifted her head up and Bridie saw the tear trails running down her cousin's face and replied, ‘Don't be.'

‘Do you believe me?'

‘Every word.'

Bridie relaxed for a moment, and then thought of what Rosalyn had said. Francis was her father – if anyone had made a similar accusation against Jimmy McCarthy, Bridie wouldn't have believed it, not in a hundred years would she believe it, and so she asked hesitantly, ‘Why do you?'

‘Because it's not the first time,' Rosalyn said. ‘Oh not with me, don't think that, but with other girls, young girls, I mean as young as you were. Mammy knew, but – well, she was married and in the Catholic Church and had standing in the community. If she'd admitted Daddy had strayed since the day of his marriage, many would think it must have been her fault.'

Bridie digested all Rosalyn said and knew it to be the truth. ‘I can't believe she knew and did nothing.'

‘What could she do? You know what it was like back then?'

‘But I …'

‘She never knew about you,' Rosalyn cried in distress. ‘Oh she never, ever thought that you were in any danger. She thought your relationship to Daddy would protect you. She never imagined for a minute … Oh God, Bridie, I don't know what to say, how my family can ever make up to you for what you've suffered.'

‘Did you hear what I said, Rosalyn? I was having a baby and I had it aborted – I am sinful.'

‘Don't talk bullshit!' Rosalyn cut in. ‘The only bloody sinner in this is my bugger of a father. Don't you see you're the victim here, you bloody fool!'

‘Do you mean that?'

‘'Course I mean it,' Rosalyn said. ‘Christ, Bridie, Mammy would rather have cut off her right arm than to have that happen to you. She wrote and told me about Daddy when I was settled in America, no details you know, just that he was unfaithful and had been so from the first day of their marriage and that he liked his conquests young. I suppose she just had to tell someone and with me being married and all, perhaps she thought I'd be the best person. Anyway, for whatever reason she told me about Daddy. Then in the early winter of 1938 she wrote again and told me Daddy had been interfering with young Connie since the spring. She wasn't fourteen until the autumn and had suffered for months before plucking up the courage to say anything. Mammy wrote to me straightaway. I suppose I was the only one she felt she could confide in.'

Bridie was shocked to the core. For a man to do that sort of thing and to his own daughter! She sensed there was more, but Rosalyn seemed to hesitate. ‘Go on,' she urged.

‘I will,' Rosalyn said. ‘But you must promise to tell no one. Mammy's life hangs in the balance.'

‘When have I ever told secrets on you?'

‘Never,' Rosalyn said. ‘You're the one person in the world I can always trust. And I'll trust you with this. Mammy has told me since that she went about like a mad woman. The whole tale spilled out of her when I came home in mid-December. I think she was glad to have someone to tell, for she was too ashamed to share the news of her husband abusing his own daughter. Anyway, as things turned out, it was better that she'd confided in no one.'

‘Why?'

‘I'll tell you why,' Rosalyn said. ‘All the years of her marriage, Mammy had turned a blind eye to Daddy's philandering but never in a million years did she think he'd do that to one of his own. Daddy was often out at night. We were all well used to it, but the night after Connie told Mammy, just after she'd written to me, she tailed him to McCluskie's barn and saw him in there, lying in the straw, himself and the young girl with him only half-dressed. She was the daughter of a neighbouring farmer and young too, not much older than Connie. Mammy said a rage built up inside her, both for the years of torture she'd endured and the lives of the young girls he'd interfered with and worse, many may be traumatised or damaged for life, and now too for her own violated daughter. It was the final straw.

‘He hadn't seen her, she's made sure of that, so she started in the direction of home and laid in wait for Daddy. She knew roughly the time he'd be back, and because she was no match for him, she had a branch of wood in her hand. Daddy was taken unawares. He was lilting a tune to himself and staggering a little, because he'd taken more than a drop, and when the branch hit him full in the face, he overbalanced and fell in the ditch. She said there was blood everywhere. He was only semi-conscious and she fell upon him, punching him and scratching his face.

‘She left him lying there alive – groaning, she said, but alive – and expected him to stagger home later. But the branch must have done more damage than she'd thought, or he was too drunk to climb out, but either way, next morning, his stiff, dead body was discovered still in the ditch.'

Bridie's mouth dropped open. ‘Aunt Delia killed him!'

‘Aye, she did,' Rosalyn said. ‘But she didn't mean to kill him. She wanted to teach him a lesson just. But you see what people would make of it if they knew what had really happened. His infidelities would be passed off as a man's weakness. You'd never get girls to publicly say what he'd done to them, for their names and their families would be mud after it. If she'd confessed, Mammy would have hung. And for what? A pervert who preyed on the young? I didn't know it all when I heard of his death, of course, but I knew enough; I knew about Connie and the others by then. I couldn't bring myself to come home for his funeral. I couldn't have borne everyone saying how great he was. If I'd known of Mammy's part in his death, I'd have come to give her some support, but I didn't find that out until much later. Didn't you wonder at my not being there?'

‘Aye,' said Bridie. ‘Mary and I thought you'd got above yourself. Now I understand.' But she couldn't really credit her aunt Delia with doing such a thing. To kill a man – God! ‘Did no one suspect her?' she asked.

‘Apparently not,' Rosalyn said. ‘When he was found dead the next day, Mammy was beside herself with guilt which everyone put down to grief. The gypsies were seen in the area and that was that. The blame was laid at their door and Mammy got away with it.'

‘Who knows?'

‘No one,' Rosalyn said. ‘No one but me and you. She hadn't even confessed to the priest – well, she could hardly go to Clar Chapel, or even Donegal Town. I mean they'd know who she was talking about. There aren't men dying every week over there, like there are in New York. I know they cannot tell anyone, but they'd know Mammy was responsible and she couldn't have borne that. That was the only thing that worried her.'

Bridie knew she'd worry over that too. ‘What did she do?'

‘She came with me as far as Derry when I was coming here to see you – told them all at home she fancied a day shopping with me before I caught the train to Belfast. Instead, we toured around the place until we found a Catholic Church that took confessions that day. Mammy was in and out like a dose of salts. The priest tried to give her a hard time, she said, but she wouldn't answer questions. He couldn't have followed her, for he had queues waiting on him, but we hightailed it out of there as soon as he'd given her absolution.'

‘What a thing, though, to have on your conscience.'

‘Aye,' Rosalyn said. ‘And yet she'd come to terms with that by the time I'd come home. I never knew a thing about the way Daddy was until she told me. I loved him dearly, we all did, but for Mammy it must have been Hell for years.'

‘My Mammy told me one time that Francis wasn't an easy man and that Delia had a time of it. I asked her what she meant, but she clammed up. She'd sort of let it slip out and regretted it straightaway.'

‘Maybe Mammy confided in her?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Now that's what you must do.'

‘What?'

‘Tell your mother what happened and from the beginning, like you did with me.'

‘I couldn't.'

‘You must!' Rosalyn insisted. ‘Set the record straight before it's too late.'

‘But, Daddy …'

‘Let your mother be the judge of whether to tell him or not,' Rosalyn said. ‘But tell Auntie Sarah, for there's a constant sadness behind her eyes and Mammy said it's been there since you left. She can't understand it and it's left her hurt and confused. Don't leave her like that, Bridie.'

‘She'll not believe me.'

‘She will,' Rosalyn persisted. ‘And Mammy and I will back you up anyway. She really needs to know.'

‘You don't think she'll hate me?'

‘Not at all. Why should she?'

‘Oh, you know.'

‘I don't know,' Rosalyn burst out. ‘Stop blaming yourself and put Auntie Sarah out of her misery.'

Bridie remembered the love her mother and father had showered on her for years and now, though her mother was friendly enough, there was still a reserve that had never been there before.

‘I'll do it,' she told Rosalyn. ‘I'll tell her everything when I take Jay over to stay with them. But now I must make arrangements to see the children.'

A week later, Bridie was no nearer seeing the children. Any attempt she made to arrange a visit was blocked and she was at first angry and then despondent.

Twice that week the sirens had disturbed them and this stiffened Bridie's resolve to look for somewhere on the outskirts of the city to live once she'd delivered Jay into her mother's care. She visited him every day, and was as pleased as he was when the plaster from his arm was removed. After a week's physiotherapy on the arm, he was given crutches. ‘Won't be long now till I go to Ireland,' Jay told her, his face shining. ‘I'm going to practise every day.'

‘You do that,' Bridie said encouragingly. ‘I'm sure you'll soon get the hang of it. I bet by the time Rosalyn comes back you'll be getting along faster than either of us.'

She was glad she'd made Jay smile, she thought as she returned to her depressing room that evening. She missed Rosalyn already and she'd only been gone a few hours – off to visit Todd – before returning to help Bridie transport Jay to Ireland when the doctors gave him the ‘all clear'.

‘Don't come back here,' Todd told his young wife. ‘It's just too bloody dangerous. God, I'd rather have you in back home in the States than here, much as I'd miss you.'

Rosalyn didn't argue with her husband. She knew he was concerned because he loved her and she didn't want him worried about her. She'd heard inattentiveness led to lack of concentration and that could sign a person's death warrant in the skies. Yet she didn't know if she had it in her to just up and leave Bridie. But she wouldn't spoil the precious time she had with Todd arguing about it either. She decided that when she got to Ireland, she'd see how the land lay and make her decision then.

Bridie was finding time hanging heavy on her hands that night and before she went to bed, she made a decision. The following morning she would make her way to the orphanage. She wouldn't ring for an appointment she'd never get, she'd just turn up and then see what they'd do about it.

Dr Havering faced Bridie across the desk. He was furious with the woman for just turning up like this and wouldn't have agreed to see her at all if he'd been given a chance to think about it.

He was worried enough about her children, as they'd seemed to have gone backwards since the New Year. They'd had no sessions with him until then, when he'd seen them both, but separately, and for the first time used their names.

Katie's eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped, but she didn't speak.

‘Well, that is your name isn't it, Katie?'

There was no answer, no response of any kind, and so the doctor said, ‘I know it is. Someone told me.'

Katie wondered who that was, who would know, but she wouldn't ask, she'd say nothing to this man with the hard, cold, blue eyes that the smile never reached. She refused to play his stupid games and she fixed her eyes on the wall and clamped her lips tight. The doctor had the feeling that Katie had climbed into a glass box and pulled the lid down. She could be seen, but not reached; it was as if she'd switched herself off.

Liam's reaction had been even worse. He was terrified of the man and had begun to shake violently when he'd called him by name. He didn't dare cry – he didn't know what they'd do to him if he cried – but since then he seemed to have lost control of his bladder and bowels. He'd also started to suck his thumb again and rock from side to side, wherever he was.

Dr Havering began to wonder if he had the specialist skills to deal with such disturbed children and whether they wouldn't be better being committed to the children's wing of an asylum, such as Moneyhall. Now here was the children's wretched mother pushing her way in, uninvited. ‘This is very irregular, Mrs Cassidy.'

‘So is not allowing me access to my children.'

‘We are not denying you access. Your children are under our care. They are showing severe behavioural problems at the moment. It is my professional opinion that it would be detrimental for your children's health if they were to see you now.'

‘Do they even know I'm alive? That I've been searching for them? That I visit this place and beg for a glimpse of the children I bore?' Bridie's voice rose hysterically.

‘Please calm yourself, Mrs Cassidy. Hysteria will not help the problem.'

‘What will?'

‘Let us approach this logically,' the doctor said. ‘If these sick, disturbed children should be released into your care, where would they live? Where do you live at present?'