by Anne Bennett
Molly was so glad to receive the replies, though they often reduced her to tears. If she could, she would wait till she reached the farm to read them and then she would then reread them over and over until she could repeat them word for word.
She was surprised to find four envelopes and one in a handwriting she didn’t recognise waiting for her that day, and as it was a special day she decided to open the letters there. Nellie and Jack had come to watch. Kevin’s card, which she opened first, was homemade and showed a girl on a hillside dotted with sheep and underneath the girl he had written ‘Molly’ and inside the card he had written in his wobbly hand, ‘Miss you. Lots of luv, Kevin.’
Inside the cards from Hilda and her granddad there were letters, which she put in her pocket for later, and then drew the mystery card towards her. The envelope was of the best quality and she caught a whiff of the scent on it as she slit it open. The card itself was silk and depicted a beautiful girl in a flowing dress in a garden awash with flowers.
‘Golly, who’s that from?’ Cathy breathed in admiration.
‘Mind your own business, Cathy,’ Nellie said reprovingly.
‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ Molly said, looking up from reading the card with a smile. ‘Anyone would want to know. It’s not the normal run-of-the-mill card, after all, and it is from Dad’s old employer, Paul Simmons. You remember I told you about my father saving his life in the war and how he got a job working with him?’
‘Kind of him to send you a card, and all.’
‘Oh, he sent more than a card,’ Molly said, pulling out a five-shilling postal order. ‘He has written a little note here. Apparently he has set up a fund for me and Kevin to mature when we are twenty-one, but he says twenty-one seems a lifetime away when you are only fourteen and so from now on there will be five shillings a week coming from his solicitors.’
There was a gasp from the family. ‘Isn’t that the very devil’s own luck, Molly?’ Jack said.
‘Aye, and about time some good fortune happened to you,’ said Nellie sincerely. ‘And I am as pleased as if it was myself, for it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.’
‘Yes,’ said Cathy in impatient excitement. ‘But what are you going to do with all that money?’
‘Save it,’ Molly said decisively. ‘You know I intend to leave this place and I think Mr Simmons maybe knows that. He didn’t like my grandmother one bit – anyone could see that – but it didn’t surprise me because most normal people don’t.’
‘I don’t blame him either,’ Nellie said. ‘He sounds a wonderful man, so he does.’
‘He is,’ Molly agreed happily. ‘I knew nothing of any fund until this moment, and it will be lovely to have a bit of money when I am an adult, but I will not bide here until I am twenty-one. But to move anywhere, you need money behind you and I will save up all these five-shilling postal orders.’
‘Will I open you an account with the Post Office, Molly?’ Nellie said. ‘It will be safest, especially if I keep the book for you.’
Molly nodded. ‘I was going to ask you, because it wouldn’t be wise to keep anything at the farm.’
‘Do you destroy the letters or keep them?’ Cathy said.
‘I can’t bring myself to destroy them yet,’ Molly admitted, ‘though I know it would be safer. I daren’t keep them in my room either; my grandmother isn’t above snooping around. But I have found a box behind all the bales of hay right at the back of the barn where my grandmother never goes. I keep all the stationery items there too and just smuggle in what I need, but I wouldn’t like money kept out there as well.’
‘Does Tom know about it?’
‘I’ve told my uncle nothing.’
‘Why?’ Nellie said. ‘Surely you know that Tom would never betray you?’
‘He wouldn’t mean to,’ Molly said. ‘But even though he has broken out a little and does stick up for me and himself a bit, he is still very much under his mother’s thumb in many ways. He is unnerved by her rages and when you are not fully in control of yourself, you can sometimes let things slip out. If he doesn’t know, then he can’t tell.’ She hesitated and then went on, ‘I don’t intend to tell him about the money either. I mean, I am really fond of Uncle Tom, but what if we should be talking about it and she overheard or something? I know with absolute certainty that if my grandmother got one sniff of this money she would have every penny piece off me. This will be my passport to freedom and I’d really rather no one but us in this room knew anything about the postal orders.’
‘You needn’t fret yourself, Molly,’ Nellie said ‘It is your business and that’s how it will stay.’ Cathy also promised and Nellie said, ‘Jack, you hear that?’
‘Course I hear it, and don’t you be pointing the finger at me,’ Jack said. ‘I can keep my own counsel the same as the next man.’
‘Even when the beer loosens your tongue, I mean?’
‘Even then,’ Jack said. He turned to Molly. ‘No one will hear a dicky bird from me of the events of this afternoon, I promise you faithfully.’
Molly sighed in relief. ‘Thanks, Jack – thanks, all of you. The first letter I shall write will be to Mr Simmons to thank him. But,’ she added playfully to Jack, ‘I can afford my own stamps and all now.’
‘I should think so,’ Jack said, matching her mood. ‘And about time too, I think.’
‘Come on,’ Nellie said. ‘There is a party tea awaiting us set out in the room. Let’s go in and do it justice.’
Father Finlay was becoming worried about Molly and he was not the only one.
‘It dates back to what happened years ago,’ Nellie told the priest, who called at the post office, knowing that she probably knew more about the girl and what was going on in the home than anyone else in the parish. Nellie told the priest all about Nuala and the father’s heart attack when he received the fateful letter.
‘I think she is making Molly sort of pay for what her mother did,’ Nellie said. ‘The child is nearly a prisoner on that farm, and from what Tom tells me, does far more than the lion’s share of work on it. And … I hesitate to say this, Father, for I deplore gossip, and had I not seen it myself I would not say a word about it, but Biddy is far too free with her fists.’
The priest frowned a little, disturbed by what Nellie said. Normally, he had no problem with physical punishment and he knew of many bold children – usually boys, he had to admit – that had been stopped from going off the rails altogether by the power of their fathers’ belts, or a few strokes from a stick. Molly, however, didn’t seem the type of girl to need such stringent punishment, certainly not at the age she was. ‘You are sure of this?’
‘I have seen it with my own eyes, Father.’
‘Dear, dear. What is to be done?’
‘Nothing about that, Father, I fear,’ Nellie said. ‘For knowing the type of woman Biddy is, I feel that if anything were said, things might be worse for Molly later.’
‘What of Tom in all this?’
‘Molly is very fond of Tom,’ Nellie said. ‘It would be hard not to be, but sure, the man cannot be everywhere.’
‘No, indeed.’
‘What Molly would really like, Father, for she has told my own daughter Cathy, is to come to Buncrana perhaps on a Saturday a time or two. Tom and Biddy come every week, but Molly is never allowed after the one time she was here.’
‘Why not?’
Nellie shrugged. ‘You must ask her that, Father, because to my knowledge she has been given no explanation.’
‘If she was to come in with them, it would solve another problem I have and that is confession,’ the priest said. ‘There are weeks between each one Molly makes, and she comes to the church either Thursday or Friday evening, when the chores are done at home and Tom has time to bring her down, for her grandmother forbids her to go alone. This much she has told me when I asked her. The point is, I hear Biddy and Tom’s confession every two weeks on Saturday morning when they are in Buncrana anyway, and surely it would do the child
good to do the same thing.’
‘You’d think so, Father,’ Nellie said. ‘Maybe you could use that as a lever.’
‘Maybe I could indeed. I will certainly give the matter some thought.’
Before the priest had much time to give to thought at all, in fact that same evening, Molly entered the confessional box and kneeled down. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It is six weeks since my last confession.’
The priest decided, much as he trusted Nellie’s judgement and assessment of the situation, he would get the child’s viewpoint on it as well, and so he commented again that he would like to see her more often.
‘I can’t, Father. I have told you how it is.’
‘But your uncle and grandmother attend regularly when they come to town with their produce on Saturday.’
‘I know, Father.’
‘So, why don’t you come with them?’
‘I’m not allowed,’ Molly said. ‘I think it is something to do with the fact that my grandmother would not like me to have fun of any sort.’ She saw the sharp movement of the priest’s head behind the screen and said, ‘It’s true. Come and talk to her yourself, Father, if you don’t believe me. She sees sin in laughter and enjoyment. I can’t understand it. My mother was forever saying that God wouldn’t have given us the gift of laughter if he didn’t want us to use it.’
‘A wise woman,’ the priest said. ‘There is no harm at all in honest laughter and indeed, it lightens the load for many. I think it will be good for you to come to town and meet people, and I can’t see any sin at all in that. I will come and have a word with your grandmother.’
Molly knew that priests were a law unto themselves and they had immense power, so she smiled and said, ‘I’d say “best of luck”, but that’s not the thing to say, is it? Not in the confessional, at any rate.’
She heard the answering smile in the priest’s voice as he commented, ‘Let’s say that I will endeavour to change your grandmother’s mind with the help of God.’
You might need God and all the saints marshalled together, thought Molly later as she left the confessional box, and yet the priest had their immortal souls in the palm of his hand and even her grandmother listened to him.
As it was a fine evening, Tom was waiting for her outside, leaning against the wall, and he was amused by the large smile on Molly’s face as she left the church.
‘What’s up with you?’ he said. ‘You look like the cat that got the cream.’
‘What’s wrong with being happy?’
‘Nothing,’ Tom conceded. ‘It’s just that most people don’t come out of confession with a dirty great grin on their faces, but no one should be forced to share their thoughts if they don’t want to, so you keep yours to yourself and no harm done.’
Molly was glad her uncle didn’t press her. If the priest did what he said he would do and visited the house, then Tom and her grandmother would know soon enough and she resolved to think no more about it.
So when, just a few days later, Biddy opened the door to the priest, Tom caught sight of the look on Molly’s face as the man entered the room. He suddenly knew that the priest’s visit was linked in some way to what had been said to Molly at her last confession, which had put her in such good humour. Biddy was unsuspicious, for it wasn’t completely out of the way for the priest to call, though he would usually mention on Sunday morning that he might call around one evening that week. He hadn’t to be more specific than that, because the priest was the one person always sure of his welcome.
Biddy smiled as much as she was able, and bade the man come in and sit by the fire and rest himself. She helped the priest off with his coat as she spoke and then roared at Molly to put the kettle on to make the priest a cup of tea.
The priest did not broach the subject of confession straight away. He drank the tea Molly gave him and helped himself to a piece of barnbrack and another of oaten bread, which Biddy pressed on him. They talked of farming matters and the vagaries of the prices at the livestock market. Molly listened to the voices rise and fall as she waited in an agony of impatience, thinking maybe she had misinterpreted the reason for the priest’s visit and that any minute he would get to his feet, thank her for the refreshments and be gone.
‘Get Father Finlay another cup of tea,’ said Biddy, her strident voice cutting through Molly’s thoughts. ‘Where are your manners?’
It was as Molly handed the priest the cup that their eyes met and she felt he was saying that he hadn’t forgotten the reason for being there. Then Molly began to relax a little. The priest took a sip of the tea before saying, ‘I was glad to see young Molly at confession a few days ago.’
‘Oh, yes, Father, I make sure she goes,’ Biddy said self-righteously. ‘Packed full of sin, she is.’
The priest bent his head for a moment to hide the smile as he remembered the small misdemeanours that Molly had recounted to him. Packed full of sin was definitely not the way he would have described her, but it maybe worked to his advantage and he said, ‘That being the case, I am surprised that she doesn’t come more often.’
Biddy flushed. ‘It’s time, so it is, Father. Tom is busy and indeed so is Molly.’
‘I understand that,’ the priest went on soothingly. ‘And that is why I don’t know why she doesn’t come with you to Buncrana on Saturday as you and Tom do.’
‘Isn’t this what I have told you, Mammy, over and over?’ Tom cried.
Biddy ignored her son and instead said to the priest, ‘I don’t approve of the young ones in the town. I see them laughing together and carrying on, and I don’t want Molly up to any of that sort of caper.’
The priest remembered Molly’s word in the confessional and knew she had spoken the truth. He said, ‘There is nothing wrong with laughter, Biddy, nothing at all.’ Then, paraphrasing Molly, he continued, ‘Sure, if the Good Lord didn’t want us to laugh then surely he would have not given us the ability to do so. As for the carry-on, well, there was nothing I liked better when I was young. High spirits is all it is. There is no harm in the majority of young people in Buncrana.’
Biddy gave an impatient toss of her head. ‘Molly cannot be spared on Saturdays. She has duties at home.’
Father Finlay regarded Biddy gravely and shook his head as he said, ‘I don’t believe that I am hearing this. We are talking here of Molly’s Catholic duty. Would you have her immortal soul imperilled? Isn’t that why you removed the girl from Birmingham, to ensure she had a proper, Catholic upbringing?’
Tom saw that Molly was sitting with her head bent and he knew that was to prevent Biddy seeing her face, which he guessed would have a smile on it, for he was having a similar problem adjusting his own features. Once he had heard the expression ‘hoist with his own petard’, and it seemed to fit this situation very aptly indeed.
Biddy knew it too. ‘Yes, well, Father … you see, the thing is …’
Father Finlay took advantage of her confusion. ‘I will expect to see Molly at confession at least once a fortnight from now on,’ he said firmly. ‘How you arrange it is your business, but I think it would do Molly no harm at all – indeed, a great deal of good – to meet with young people of her own age. I feel I would be failing in my duty if I didn’t tell you this and if I allowed this situation to go on any longer.’
He got to his feet as he spoke. Biddy looked as if she was suffering from extreme shock, which was causing her mouth to open and close like a fish’s.
It was Tom who got up, shook the priest by the hand and said, ‘You have eased my mind, for this is what I wanted to happen from the beginning.’
‘Well, we all have to avail ourselves of the sacraments,’ Father Finlay said as Tom helped him with his coat. ‘They are, after all, the very backbone of the Catholic Church. Good night to you all.’
Biddy didn’t speak, but Molly said, ‘Good night, Father.’
Tom put in, ‘Wait, Father. I’ll get a torch and go along with you to the head of the lane, for it’s like pitch out ther
e. I’d not want to find you in a ditch in the morning.’
Molly watched her grandmother’s malicious eyes swivel to meet hers and she wanted to beg Tom to stay in the cottage, to let the priest make his own way, for she knew that falling into a ditch would be nothing to what was going to happen to her once the men left.
She was right. Barely had the door closed behind them than Biddy, her face close to Molly’s, hissed, ‘You put the priest up to this.’
Molly was so scared her insides were jumping about and her heart was thumping against her ribs. She knew she was going to catch it and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She tried protesting, however. ‘I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. The priest asked me. He said—’
‘Liar!’ The punch that accompanied the word, landed square between Molly’s eyes. It knocked her from the chair on to the floor, and for a second or two she thought she had been blinded. And then she screamed as her grandmother yanked her to her feet by her hair and pounded into her again and again. Molly’s knees had buckled beneath her, but her grandmother had Molly’s hair twisted around her fingers and was holding her up as she laid into her.
A white hot fury had taken hold of Biddy and in the forefront of her mind was the picture of her husband lying dead on the floor. Each punch she levelled at Molly was because she was the daughter of the one who had caused that death and because she had gone whining to the priest. So out of control was Biddy that she wouldn’t really have cared if she killed Molly. She pummelled her face and body, ignoring her gasps of pain, the screams and cries, and eventually Molly sagged unconscious. Biddy let her fall to the floor just as Tom came in the door.
‘What have you done to her now?’ he demanded, falling to his knees by Molly’s side. It was only too obvious what had been done to her, and he could barely look down on that face as he reached across to her neck for the pulse. He sighed in relief when he felt it throbbing beneath his fingers.