by Anne Bennett
‘You did your best,’ Gloria said with a sigh, ‘but we’d do well to keep an eye on her.’
This made them all more vigilant and so, a fortnight later, when Biddy suddenly keeled over as she was standing by the hearth, she would have fallen in the fire if Joe hadn’t caught hold of her. He declared he was off for the doctor, and Gloria and Tom changed the beds around so that Biddy could have the end room for more privacy.
The doctor lost no time examining Biddy. Then he assembled the family and said all he could do for her was try to keep the pain at bay. Gloria wasn’t that surprised, though she could see that both Tom and Joe were stunned.
‘Poor you,’ Helen said the following Saturday when Gloria mentioned how sick Biddy was. ‘How long does the doctor say she has?’
‘Not long,’ Gloria said, ‘but you know the woman is so contrary that she would hang on just out of spite. And it’s me mostly that bears the brunt of her ill humour, of course.’
‘I don’t know how you’ll put up with her,’ Helen said. ‘I think that you deserve a medal.’
‘Shall I let you into a little secret?’ Gloria said. ‘So do I.’
There was little change in Biddy in late October when Tom came home from Buncrana with a letter that he said was from Molly.
Joe was surprised at his brother’s sober demeanour. ‘I thought you would be near standing on your head,’ he said, ‘hearing from the girl after all this time. It means at least she is not dead.’
‘Aye,’ Tom said slowly. ‘That’s the only good thing about it. You’d best read it yourself and then you’ll understand better,’ and he passed the letter over. Joe took it and Gloria, intrigued, read it at the same time, over his shoulder.
‘It doesn’t say anything,’ Joe said when he had finished. ‘I mean, it just states the bare facts, like her grandfather is dead and she found Kevin in an orphanage. There is no explanation of where she has been these past years or what she has been doing or anything.’
‘What she doesn’t say is more important than what she does,’ Gloria said. ‘I think that girl is hiding some secret that she thinks is too terrible to share. She has written this to assure you she is alive and so is her brother, and she certainly doesn’t want anyone to find her because she has put no address on the top of it.’
‘What d’you think it means?’ Tom asked.
‘I have no idea,’ Gloria said. ‘All we can hope is that she will write again later and explain everything.’
Over a week since the appearance of that strange letter and early one morning, Joe had taken the churns to the head of the lane to await the creamery lorry while Tom was cleaning out the byre. Joe saw the postman first.
‘Tom about?’ he asked Joe.
‘Aye. Why do you want him?’
‘I have a package for him,’ the postman said, pulling a small parcel from his sack. ‘Nellie McEvoy said I was to give it to him direct.’
Joe could never remember any of them getting a parcel before and so he looked at it curiously.
‘It’s from England,’ the postman said.
‘You’d best give it to Tom then, hadn’t you,’ Joe said. ‘The byre is where you’ll find him.’
Tom was just as perplexed as his brother to receive a package, though he had no intention of opening it until the postman had gone. Joe called into the byre a little later to see if Tom was finished to find the man in floods of tears, the opened package at his feet.
‘Tom, what in God’s name ails you?’
Tom raised his tear-stained face and silently handed Joe the package. Joe read the letter first. It began with an acerbic attack on Tom for allowing Molly to go alone and unprotected to Birmingham and finished by saying that he was sending him the cuttings from the newspapers of the trial in case Molly hadn’t told them everything, and that he was making arrangements to see her immediately. It was signed, Paul Simmons.
Joe didn’t know who Paul Simmons was. He withdrew the press cuttings and within a few minutes of reading them he understood his brother’s tears. He felt his own eyes fill up and a large lump lodge in his throat as he read of his young, naïve niece, arriving at New Street Station, Birmingham, at the start of the worst raid the city had experienced. She had been understandably terrified and glad to be befriended by two men who promised to look after her.
Instead, they lured her to a flat where they had her pumped so full of drugs she had trouble remembering her own name as they preened her for the whorehouse. A man called Will Baker rescued and hid her, at great risk to himself and his family. However, she knew too much to be allowed to go free and, later, brutal louts tracked her down and made an attempt on her life that very nearly succeeded.
‘God, Tom,’ Joe said brokenly. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘You didn’t know Molly, of course, but honest to God, Joe, she hadn’t a nasty bone in her body,’ Tom said. ‘And she was innocent. She would have no idea that the men who pretended they would care for her made a living scouring train stations for young girls on their own. She would never imagine things like that could happen.’
‘God, Tom, I am a lot older and more experienced than Molly, and I was unaware of things like that happening,’ Joe said. ‘And who is Paul Simmons?’
‘Paul Simmons is the injured officer Molly’s father put his life on the line to rescue in the Great War,’ Tom told his brother. ‘One of his legs had been shattered and so he ended up with one leg shorter than the other. When the war was over he found driving difficult and he sought out Molly’s father and offered him a job as his chauffeur. He owned an engineering works, just like your Brian Brannigan. Anyway, after Nuala and her husband died, Paul took an interest in the children. Molly is set to inherit a great deal of money when she is twenty-one, and Kevin too, of course, in his turn. Mammy knows nothing about this, or about the allowance that Simmons has been paying Molly since she was fourteen. With the help of Nellie McEvoy she had saved most of it and that was how she was able to afford to pay the fare to Birmingham.’
‘Well, from the tone of the letter, you are not this Paul Simmons’ favourite person at the moment.’
‘Oh, Joe, I deserve that and more,’ said Tom. ‘When I think of what Molly has gone through …’ Tom shut his eyes for a moment and then went on, ‘And then, not only to suffer it, but to stand up and tell perfect strangers what had happened to her. The courage that took beggars belief.’
‘I agree with you there,’ Joe said. ‘But I don’t see how you can hold yourself responsible. How d’you think this Simmons chap is going to contact Molly, anyway? D’you think he has her address?’
Tom shrugged. ‘If he has, he is not likely to give it to me. But it said in the cuttings that she worked at Castle Bromwich Aerodrome, so maybe he will get in touch that way.’
‘Well, couldn’t you do the same?’
‘I will when Mammy … Well, I couldn’t leave her the way she is.’
‘Tom, you have given her more than half your lifetime,’ Joe said. ‘You owe her nothing.’
‘She is my mother,’ Tom said simply. ‘Bad as she is, I can’t leave her now.’
Three days later, a letter came from Molly to Tom. She wrote that Paul had been to see her and told her of the letter that he had sent to him. She told him there was no way that he or anyone else could have stopped her doing what she felt she had to do. She blamed a lot of what happened at the station on her own stupidity and naivety, and she felt very ashamed of her part in it and that was why she had not been in touch sooner.
She also went on to say that she had Kevin with her now and she had met a wonderful man called Mark, whom she would like her uncle to meet as he had become very special in her life.
‘Now,’ Joe said, handing the letter back to Tom, ‘will you stop beating yourself about the head for something you couldn’t prevent?’
Tom smiled and said, ‘I’ll do my best, but the first thing I will do, now that Molly has sent me her address, is write a long letter to her and say I wi
ll be over to see her as soon as my mother is buried.’
FOURTEEN
In the middle of December, in the throes of one of her many tantrums, Biddy suddenly went stiff and her eyes rolled in her head. Gloria and Joe were in with her at the time and Gloria sprang away from the bed. ‘Is she dead?’
Joe felt for the pulse in her neck and said, ‘No, but something has happened, and so I am away for the doctor.’
The doctor, who was surprised that she had held on to life so long, said Biddy had had a stroke, and a bad one. When it was established that she had no movement below her neck, Joe asked Gloria if she wanted her transferred to the County Hospital as the doctor had recommended. ‘I don’t,’ Gloria said. ‘I have bruises and pinch marks on my arms and a graze on my cheek from where she threw the pepper pot at me only yesterday. I will find her easier to deal with in the state she is in now, as long as either you or Tom will be around to help me turn her.’
‘You are a marvellous woman,’ Joe said. ‘Mammy never had a good word for you.’
‘She didn’t have a good word for many people,’ Gloria said. ‘Look how she used to harangue Tom.’
‘Well, she can’t do that anymore,’ Joe said. ‘Tom won’t know what to do with himself.’ And then he added with a grin, ‘Maybe we should yell at him on a daily basis to make him feel at home.’
‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ Gloria said. ‘And get from under my feet. I have to prepare a meal for your mother. If you have spare time on your hands, you might go down and tell the priest what has happened. Your mother sent the poor man from here with a flea in his ear about a fortnight ago and he’s not been back since.’
Gloria tended Biddy for seven more weeks until her death. She knew it was hard on her to lose the power of speech, and she would feel her malevolent eyes boring into her often. Sometimes, she would refuse the food, or spit it back at Gloria, and for the last fortnight she refused to take the painkillers the doctor prescribed, and ate less than a bird.
‘She is in pain, she must be,’ Gloria said after the third day. ‘I can see it in her eyes. Maybe she should go to the hospital after all.’
‘Why, so they can force feed her and compel her to take her medication?’ Tom said. ‘I think she has had enough, and who could blame her for that?’
‘But we can’t just leave her suffering,’ cried Gloria.
‘We can,’ Joe said. ‘She knows what she is doing. Tom’s right, it really has got to be her decision, but I will ask Father Finlay to come up and give her the last rites, I think.’
‘Aye,’ Tom said. ‘That would be a good idea. I tell you, it’s a powerfully quiet house without Mammy roaring in it all the time.’
‘Well, I did suggest that Gloria and I shout at you on a daily basis in case you missed it, but Gloria wasn’t keen.’
Tom laughed. ‘Miss it?’ he repeated. ‘Aye, I miss it all right, like you might miss a headache when it is over. You two couldn’t take the place of Mammy because you haven’t enough anger and resentment in you and thank God for it.’
Biddy died on a cold blustery day at the very end of January. No one had been to Mass that day, though it was Sunday. When Ben asked why, his dad had said that it was because his grandmother was on her last legs.
His mother came into the kitchen then and said to Tom and Joe, ‘I think that you had better come through now.’ Seeing Ben watching her, she added, ‘Do you want to see her, Ben?’
He shook his head vehemently. ‘I don’t have to, do I?’
‘No,’ Gloria said. ‘I thought you might want to say goodbye, that’s all.’
‘Is she dying?’ Ben asked. ‘Dad said she was.’
‘Yes, she’s dying, Ben.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘Ben …’
‘I don’t care, Mom,’ Ben said. ‘I don’t even care if that makes me wicked. She was wicked too, and horried. She shouted at people all the time, especially Uncle Tom, so why shouldn’t I be glad that she’s dying?’
Gloria didn’t have an answer, and as they went through to the bedroom Joe told her to leave Ben alone. ‘Many people will feel the same as he does, but while an adult will wrap it up nicely, a child says it straight. To be honest, he was often scared rigid of her when she got in one of her rages.’
‘She still scared me sometimes,’ Tom admitted. ‘And she had me a nervous wreck when I was Ben’s age, and for long enough after it too. Joe will verify that, and I was always too scared of her to stand up for myself. So don’t be that hard on Ben, for if I am honest I am glad too it’s nearly the end.’
Biddy’s shallow breathing was the only sound in the room. Tom gazed across at her lying prone on the bed, and though her face was contorted in pain, he felt no shreds of regret or compassion for her suffering.
Gloria, though, remembered her mother’s passing and she thought however bad a person was, death was a lonely path to travel. And so she sat on the chair beside the bed and took up one of Biddy’s withered hands. Joe marvelled that she could do that. He didn’t want to go anywhere near the dying woman and he stood at the end of the bed and waited until the breathing finally stopped.
Gloria laid Biddy’s arms across her chest as she had done to her mother and said with a sigh, ‘I can’t help thinking what a wasted life she had. What is the point of living if you take joy in so little?’
‘Don’t tell me you feel sorry for her?’ Joe asked, astounded.
‘No,’ Gloria said, ‘I can’t feel sorry for her because she really was almost unbearable at times, but now it is over I can feel it in my heart to pity her.’
‘You are a better person than me then,’ Tom said. ‘For the only thing I feel is relief that my ordeal is over.’
‘Anyone in the whole world could understand that,’ Joe said. ‘I couldn’t have done it. God Almighty, I would have strangled her if I’d been in your shoes.’
‘No, you wouldn’t have,’ Tom said with a smile. ‘You had a much better way of dealing with her than I had.’
‘Well, how you dealt with your mother is neither here nor there now,’ Gloria said. ‘And here’s Father Finlay striding down the lane. Will you let him in, Joe, before Ben tells him that his grandmother is dying and he’s as pleased as punch and nearly turned cartwheels around the room because of it?’
‘Aye,’ Joe said, and left the room with a smile on his face.
Biddy was buried four days later on a bleak Friday morning in February 1943, when snow tumbled relentlessly from the grey overcast sky. There were so few mourners there was no point really in having a proper wake, and though Tom and Joe’s hands were pumped many times, Gloria heard not one person express regret at Biddy’s passing.
‘We’re away to Grant’s Bar to sink a few jars,’ Joe said as the few people started to move away. ‘We shouldn’t be too late.’
‘All right,’ Gloria said. ‘I’ll make for home. Jack McEvoy will be over to do the milking shortly anyway, and if we are to go into Biddy’s old room tonight then it needs a thorough clean, for it smells of disease and death.’
When Joe got home that night, he was very glad Gloria had the end room ready for the pair of them, because he had a tale to tell that was not for Ben’s ears. He was now sleeping in the other room with his uncle, as he had when they first arrived, and fast asleep when Joe tiptoed through to their room and got into bed beside Gloria, glad she wasn’t asleep.
‘Tom told me something coming home tonight and I was so shocked that I thought it was the beer talking,’ he said to her.
‘And you’re sure now that it wasn’t?’ Gloria asked with a wry smile.
‘No,’ Joe said. ‘And I’m telling you if I had been legless, what he had to tell me would have sobered me up totally, because Tom said when he was a boy, he killed a man.’
‘He what? Gloria almost shrieked, as she shot up in the bed.
‘Shush,’ Joe cautioned. ‘This is for your ears only. I certainly don’t want Ben to get wind of it.’
; ‘But, Joe, Tom wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ Gloria said. ‘It must have been some sort of accident.’
‘In a way,’ Joe said. ‘You remember when I told you about my sister Aggie being raped by the dancing teacher McAllister, and having to run away when she found herself pregnant?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well,’ Joe said, ‘that’s who Tom killed – McAllister.’
‘Well, I would say he was no loss,’ Gloria said. ‘But I still can’t see Tom killing anyone.’
‘Listen,’ said Joe. ‘The day McAllister died was the first Sunday since Aggie had gone missing. Tom heard him commiserating with our father for Aggie running away from home like that and worrying her parents. Tom said he was raging at the hypocrisy of the man. So when he saw him on his horse on the road below him later, when he was out for a walk, he suddenly wanted to make him pay for what he had done.’
‘I’d have wanted to get even, as well,’ Gloria said. ‘But how did he do it?’
‘Well, he knew he was bound for a neighbour’s house where he would teach the fiddle, and to get to that house he had to pass through a place where there are trees on either side of the road, where the road narrows and bends slightly. Tom thought if he tied a rope between the trees just after the bend, he might be thrown from the horse and break his leg or something. In the end, he took from the barn some metal twine that we used for mending fences, but McAllister’s wife had followed him and when she saw what he was about, she tried to stop him.’
‘Why? Didn’t she know what manner of man her husband was?’
‘Oh, she knew all right,’ Joe said. ‘She told Tom he had been at it for years and she would love him to get his comeuppance, but not at Tom’s hand.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, if Tom had just injured McAllister, he would have a good idea who had wished him harm, because Tom was the only one who knew about Aggie. His wife said the man would take great delight in shouting from the rooftops how Aggie had been begging and pleading for him to have sex with her for months, and then one night he couldn’t help himself. Then the sacrifice Aggie made running away to protect her family would be for nothing. And Tom could be in serious trouble, maybe arrested himself and transported.’