Till the Sun Shines Through (56 page)

Later that morning, Bridie went round to see Rosalyn and tell her what her mother had suggested. When she went into the kitchen, for they never knocked on doors, Delia was at the press. She turned, and seeing Bridie, her face flamed beetroot red and she lowered her eyes immediately. ‘I don't know what to say to you, Bridie,' she said. ‘I can hardly bear look at you. Can you ever forgive me? When Rosalyn told me last night …'

Bridie reached out and grabbed her aunt's hands. ‘Aunt Delia, there is nothing to forgive.'

‘There is. I knew what the man was like, by Christ I knew! I thought you being his niece and all … but then why did I think that when his own daughter wasn't safe? If only I'd killed the bugger before he'd done such a thing to you.'

‘Hush,' Bridie consoled. ‘No one knows your part in that and it wouldn't do you any good for them to know either. Don't go to pieces now.'

‘No, I won't,' Delia promised. ‘I'm happier than I've ever been. But, believe me, if I'd known about you, had just a hint, I would have killed the man stone dead and not been a whit sorry.'

‘I know that, Aunt Delia,' Bridie replied. ‘In my opinion you did the world a service anyway. But now let's have no more talk of it.'

She was glad that Frank came into the kitchen at that moment, for she knew Delia would say no more in front of him. He didn't know the truth about his father and that is how she wanted it to stay. After exchanging a few words with him, Bridie went in search of Rosalyn.

On the way back she met her father. His face didn't break into a wreath of smiles as it usually did seeing Bridie, if anything his head sank lower. ‘Daddy, what is it?' Bridie cried.

Jimmy raised his weather-beaten face and Bridie saw his eyes brimming with tears. ‘Daddy!' Bridie rushed towards him and put her arms about him. ‘Tell me what ails you?'

She could barely hear the words, mumbled and made husky with tears, and then she made out some of his disjointed sentences – ‘Wee Bridie. The light of my life. For such a thing to happen.' – and she understood.

She broke from his hold and said, ‘Mammy's told you?'

‘Aye, she told me,' Jimmy replied. ‘She took me to the room so Jay wouldn't hear, for all he was sleeping. She told me first of Mary.'

‘You didn't disbelieve it?'

‘No, why would I?' Jimmy said. ‘Who ever would make up such a thing? Anyway, I know what Francis was like. I'd let him have it time and again. I was sorry about the gypsy girl. In fact, if I'd been more myself that time, I might have done more about it, but I definitely didn't want to upset your mother further, or Delia either, dealing as she was with another miscarriage, so I did nothing. But, by God, if I'd known about Mary, I'd have torn Francis to pieces, much as I loved him.'

‘She never said anything,' Bridie said soothingly. ‘She wouldn't have told me if I hadn't suffered the same way.'

‘Ah God, girl, that I'll never get over,' Jimmy said. ‘If I had Francis before me this minute, I'd put a bullet through his skull and another into that McKenna one who did all she could to destroy you.'

‘It's over, Daddy, Peggy McKenna is as dead as Francis. No point raking over it again and again. Let it lie now.'

‘Aye, you're right,' Jimmy said. ‘For your sake, nothing will be said or done about it. One thing that's always puzzled me, though, was how you got away that time without half the neighbourhood knowing of it. I broached the subject with your mother a time or two, but she'd never discuss it. I always wondered.'

‘Didn't Mammy tell you that bit? I cycled to Strabane.'

‘Cycled all the way to Strabane?'

‘Aye, I unearthed Mary's old bike,' Bridie said. ‘It was rusting away in the barn there and I did it up and set off in the middle of the night. I knew I couldn't go to a station nearer because of the risk of being spotted. I didn't know what story you'd give to the neighbours afterwards, and I didn't want anyone to see me fleeing my home.'

‘We told them you'd been ill and gone to Mary's for a wee rest,' Jimmy said. ‘Everyone knew that wasn't true – you don't just disappear overnight from a place – but we kept up the pretence. That McKenna one did write home that you'd arrived at Mary's, so everyone knew that bit was true. But I still can't believe you cycled all that way in the pitch black.'

‘I followed the rail tracks as much as possible,' Bridie said, and admitted, ‘it was pretty bad. At first it was just bitterly cold, but then the freezing rain came down. Tom was wonderful. I met him at Strabane and he loaned me his coat and fed me his breakfast for I'd not thought to take anything with me. I'd left in a bit of a state. Then he cared for me on the boat when I was as sick as a dog. I'm not a good sailor and I don't suppose expecting helped.'

‘I can't bear hearing what you went through,' Jimmy said. ‘But now we need to look forward and get those weans of yours over here where they belong.'

‘It might not be as easy as you think,' Bridie said.

But neither Jimmy nor Sarah could see a problem. They were the children's grandparents and Bridie their mother, and so when the children were released into her care she'd bring them to Ireland. Whatever ailed them, Sarah was convinced could be cured as soon as they were where they belonged. ‘All this psychiatry mumbo jumbo,' she said scathingly. ‘They may be very clever, these people, and do all sort of tests and examinations, but has anyone thought of loving the children? Has anyone put their arms around them or picked them up and given them a hug? If they haven't it's no wonder they've gone inside themselves. The sooner they leave that place the better.'

Sarah said a lot of the things that had been battering around Bridie's own head and she thought back to the forlorn figure standing alone in the playground and knew her mother was right. They had to be taken away from Oakengates, but she had no idea how that could be achieved.

It took the combined arguments of Rosalyn and Bridie to convince Sarah and Jimmy that there might be a problem getting the children's release from that place. ‘Look at it from their point of view,' Bridie said. ‘I could just say I have a place for them, I could say anything. They're not going to take my word for it. And if the children really are as sick as they say, they're even less likely to release them.'

‘I think we need the advice of a professional in this,' Sarah told them. ‘Bridie, tomorrow you and I will go into the town to see Doctor Monahan, and you can tell him the whole story. After all, he's my cousin's son, and he'll help us if anyone can.'

Doctor Monahan surveyed the two women across the desk. He'd listened while Bridie told him of the raid robbing her and her sister of their homes, their lodging with Ellen and the subsequent raid while Bridie had been away in Ireland. She'd told him how Ellen, Sam and Mary had been killed and Mary's youngest son injured, and that she'd assumed her children to be dead too until a chance remark by an old neighbour changed everything.

It was a tragic circumstance, but one the doctor imagined would be happening in many British towns and cities. He knew too of the difficulties of getting children out of local authority care once they were in, especially as Bridie told him they'd been so traumatised they'd been too afraid to speak and were having psychiatric treatment.

‘I could write you a letter, verifying that your parents are who they say they are and giving an assurance of the suitability of the home, but somehow I think you might need more than that.'

‘Aye, I know,' Bridie said resignedly.

‘This home isn't a Catholic one, is it?' Doctor Monahan asked.

‘No.'

‘Is there one in the area?'

‘Father Flynn said something about Father Hudson's Home being in Coleshill. That's not far away,' Bridie said.

‘Well, that's the angle I'd use,' the doctor said. ‘Tell Father O'Dwyer all this and go from there. Meanwhile, I'll write the letter because it might carry some weight.'

For the first time, Bridie had a glimmer of hope. She remembered Father Flynn saying although the children were Catholics they was no point in making an issue of their not being in a Roman Catholic Home. The thing to do was release them into her care. But maybe this was the way that objective could ultimately be achieved.

After that, things moved speedily and three days later, Bridie and Rosalyn alighted from the train at New Street Station, weary, hungry and cold, to be met by Father Shearer. ‘Father Flynn thought I should come with you to this place tomorrow since I've known you longer,' he explained to Bridie. ‘We have an interview with Father Phillips who runs the place at twelve o'clock tomorrow. So if you call around to the presbytery about ten o'clock we'll be in plenty of time.'

‘So soon?'

‘I think sooner the better, don't you?' Father Shearer said. ‘I'm of the same mind as Father Flynn that the children must feel they've lost everyone belonging to them. Surely to God the first thing would have been to reunite them with you and see if that would unlock their tongues and still many of their fears.'

Bridie fervently hoped Father Phillips thought the same way as they left the priest and made their way to Bridie's attic. Rosalyn, remembering the previous state of Bridie's kitchen shelves, said, ‘I'm starving – have you any food in?'

‘I had, but I gave anything left to the landlady before I went to collect Jay from the hospital,' Bridie said. ‘I kept a bit of tea and sugar back, though, and we have the soda bread and tub of butter Mammy pressed on us.'

‘Good job she did,' Rosalyn said. ‘But I think I need more than bread and butter.'

‘We can get chips somewhere,' Bridie said. ‘Let's just dump our stuff first.'

As they went into the house, the landlady's own door opened. ‘Oh you're back,' she said to Bridie.

‘Aye, I said I would be.'

‘Well, I wasn't sure,' the landlady said. ‘I've had someone else after the place. After all, you owe rent.'

‘Only one week and I'll give that to you now.'

The landlady wasn't so easily mollified. She cast a malevolent glance at Rosalyn and said, ‘I hope you're not into subletting? I'd never agree to that.'

‘She's my cousin,' Bridie explained. ‘And just staying a night or two.'

‘Aye, well, she's stayed before. I've seen her.'

‘I only stayed a night or two then as well,' Rosalyn said. ‘You can hardly charge extra rent for that.'

‘I can charge what I like, it's my place,' the landlady snapped, but brightened a little when Bridie put the rent money into her hand. ‘Yes, well, I'll let it go this time,' she said. ‘But be warned, you disappear again and there will be someone else in your place when you come back.

‘And another thing,' she went on. ‘There's a big bloody parcel come for you and I've had to have it in here cluttering up my place – I couldn't cart it up to the attic with my back.'

‘A parcel?' Bridie repeated.

‘That's what I said, weren't it,' the landlady said. ‘A great big bloody parcel.'

Bridie had to admit it was a great, big, bloody parcel after she and Rosalyn had manhandled it to the attic. Bridie had never had a parcel in her life and she cut the beeswaxed string with a knife, too impatient to untie the knots. Rosalyn rescued the brown paper before Bridie ripped it to shreds, noting the sender's address, which Bridie hadn't seen.

Rosalyn had done what she'd promised before Christmas and contacted her friends in the States, telling them about the situation in Birmingham in general and her cousin Bridie in particular.

Bridie pulled open the cardboard box and lifted out jumpers, dresses, cardigans, coats and even trousers with delight. They were better quality and of more style than the few utility garments available in British shops and they'd also included children's clothes and shoes. Rosalyn was glad of those. She was good with her needle and she knew she could adapt most of the things to fit Katie and Liam. Bridie wouldn't want to take the children to Ireland in orphanage charity clothes.

But there were more things in the box: tins of condensed milk and sausages and beans and two tins of peach halves in syrup. ‘Oh boy,' Rosalyn cried, her mouth watering. ‘We'll have a feast tonight, Bridie. I'll go for the chips, while you open one of the cans of sausages and another of beans and we'll have one of the tins of peaches to finish.'

‘Aye,' Bridie cried. ‘We will. And we've even got milk for the tea.'

After a fretful night, in which Bridie and therefore Rosalyn who shared the bed hardly slept, Bridie was up at the crack of dawn. When Rosalyn opened her bleary eyes it was to see her making tea for them both in the kitchenette. ‘What are you doing, Bridie? It's the middle of the night.'

‘No it isn't,' Bridie said. ‘Anyway, I'm too excited and nervous to sleep.'

Rosalyn was about to snap back that she was too tired to be excited about anything and flop back into bed when she caught sight of Bridie's face. She couldn't take that light of hope from her eyes; it would be like whipping a puppy. So, with a sigh, she struggled out of bed and began to dress quickly, for the room was like an ice-box.

They were ready far too early. Bridie collected her letters – one from the doctor and the other Father O'Dwyer had insisted on writing too – and looked at the clothes she had sorted from the box and had folded on a chair, waiting for the children to fill them. ‘I hope this Father Phillips is as helpful as Fathers Shearer and Flynn,' Bridie said to Rosalyn.

‘Well, we'll soon find out,' Rosalyn said. ‘We're ridiculously early, but you'll turn into a nervous wreck if you stay here a minute longer. Come on.'

They called for Father Shearer at the presbytery and he left hurriedly, watched disapprovingly by Father Fearney and the hatchet-faced housekeeper.