A Sister's Promise

by Anne Bennett

  But she had been so badly beaten her face was just a pulpy and bloodied mess and her eyes mere slits. Tom looked from his niece to his mother almost in disbelief. He castigated himself for leaving Molly at all to accompany the priest and then to stand chatting with him as if neither had a care in the world, while this carnage, this brutality was going on just a few yards away.

  It was not the first time his mother had behaved like an untamed, out-of-control animal. His childhood had been a harsh one anyway, but there were times when his mother seemed to lose all self-control, as if a form of madness had taken over. Tom had suffered from this more than either of his brothers, and it was only the intervention of his father, often alerted by one of the others, that had sometimes prevented his mother flaying the skin from his body with the bamboo cane.

  ‘You deserve to be locked up, you bloody maniac,’ he ground out as he lifted Molly in his arms. ‘And it may come to that yet.’

  ‘Don’t you—’

  ‘Don’t even try talking to me,’ Tom said. ‘There are no words you could say I would want to hear. Do you know, I regret even breathing the same air as you and suggest you get to your bed and quickly, before I forget that I am your son and am tempted to give you a taste of your own medicine.’

  The look in Tom’s eyes was one that Biddy had never seen before, and she decided that she might be better in bed after all. Tom lifted Molly into his arms, laid her gently on her bed, and took off her boots. His hands were tender as he bathed her face gently. But her eyes remained closed, even as he eased her dungarees from her, though he left her shirt on. Then he settled himself in the chair beside the bed for the long night ahead, determined not to leave her, lest she need something.

  He watched her laboured breathing and resolved to get the doctor in if she had not recovered consciousness by the morning. His mother would kick up, but what odds whatever she did now? God Almighty, she had nearly killed the girl, and showed not a hint of remorse at what she had done. By Christ, if there was any repeat of this, or anything remotely like it, he would kill the woman with his own hands.

  When Molly woke up, she felt as if she was in the pit of hell, only she couldn’t wake up, not properly, because she couldn’t open her eyes fully. Her head was pounding. She remembered the events of the evening before, and she gingerly touched her face with her fingers, feeling the cuts, grazes and bruises.

  She had the acrid taste of blood in her mouth and her probing tongue found her split lips, lacerated cheeks and torn gums. She groaned and the slight sound disturbed Tom, who was in a light and uncomfortable slumber in the chair with all his clothes but his jacket still on.

  ‘Molly,’ he whispered, gazing at her in the light of the lamp he had left on all night. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Molly shook her head and then gasped, for even such a slight movement hurt her almost unbearably and her words sounded muffled and indistinct through her damaged mouth and thick lips. ‘I hurt.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Tom cried. ‘I am sick to the very soul of me that this has happened to you. Sorry seems so inadequate, but I am sorry – more sorry than there are words for.’

  ‘I am afraid,’ Molly said.

  She had been wary of her grandmother before and of the clouts, punches and slaps she would dish out, usually where Tom wouldn’t see, confident that Molly would say nothing, but the attack the previous evening had been savage. Molly had felt deep and primeval fear, for she had truly believed that Biddy had wanted to kill her, was trying to kill her.

  ‘Don’t be,’ Tom said. ‘Please don’t, because I promise she’ll never lay a hand on you again.’

  Molly shut her eyes then, so that Tom shouldn’t see the disbelief in them and be upset, for she knew, with the best will in the world, he was no protection if his mother was bent on destroying her. He couldn’t guard her twenty-four hours a day.

  The tears seeped from her eyes because she felt so helpless. Tom patted her hand, but said nothing, for he couldn’t think of any words to say that would help.

  TWELVE

  Molly stayed in bed for four full days and Tom tended to her every need. During that time she never saw her grandmother at all, but she knew that that way of life could not continue for ever and so the fifth day, though her face still bore evidence of the attack and her body was painful and stiff, she got out of bed and was dressed when Tom came in to see how she was.

  He was pleased, taking it as evidence of her improvement, though he did urge her to take it easy.

  Molly shook her head. ‘It’s not the workload that worries me, Tom. It is coming face to face with your mother, but I know that it’s got to be done. I know that I can’t skulk in my room for the rest of my life.’

  ‘You’re right, Molly,’ Tom said. ‘And once more I admire your courage. And I’ll be right behind you, remember that.’

  The knowledge should have made Molly feel better, but it didn’t and she was full of trepidation. Her mouth so dry she could barely swallow when she stepped into that room. She knew that the only way to deal with her grandmother was to stand up to her, but she didn’t know if she had the courage this time.

  When she saw Biddy’s eyes slide over her face, she felt her whole body start to quiver, especially when she saw her eyes held no remorse; rather they had a gloating look about them. Biddy wasn’t sorry, not even one bit. She had felt sure that once she had the girl in Ireland she would soon lick her into shape, show her who was master, as she had her own children.

  However, Molly had upended the whole house, and in her defiance and insolence had not only got Tom’s support, but the McEvoys’ and now even the priest’s. It was not to be borne. But Biddy knew this time she had thoroughly frightened the girl and she was still so full of fear that Biddy could almost smell it emanating from her.

  Tom watched Molly’s reaction to his mother with worried eyes. He could well understand it. It had been that same fear that had dogged his own life and made him the soft, malleable man he was. From the arrival of Molly, his life had begun to change. For her sake he had to speak out, learn to criticise and even defy his mother sometimes and stand on his own feet more.

  Molly’s tenacity had astonished him at times, yet he acknowledged this latest vicious attack had really seemed to unnerve her. Maybe it was down to him this time and so he said, ‘Haven’t you something to say to Molly, Mammy?’

  Biddy’s eyes slid to those of her son. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

  ‘I was thinking of an apology, at least.’

  ‘There will be no apology. The girl asked for everything she got.’

  ‘No I did not,’ Molly yelled, sudden anger replacing her fear. ‘You hit me because you wanted to and kept on hitting me, even when I couldn’t feel it any more. You are not even human, because it isn’t normal to go on the way you did.

  ‘Now you listen to this,’ she went on, ‘my face is a mess and my body a mass of bruises, but they will heal, but your mind I doubt will ever be right. Next time you hit me, because the notion takes you, I just might feel like hitting you back, so I should consider that, if I were you. And you can bring the priest, bring the goddamned bishop for all I care, and I will tell them what you did to me and that it was no cold kept me from Mass and the McEvoys, which is what I gather you told them. And at least now I know exactly where I stand.’

  She walked across the floor as she spoke and took her coat from the peg behind the door.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ Tom asked.

  Molly answered, ‘I don’t really know. Just somewhere out of this house, where the air is cleaner.’

  Molly followed Tom to the cowshed that evening because she refused to be left in the house with his mother, but Tom said she was to sit on the stool and watch and she was still so full of pain she was glad to do so.

  He had had no chance to talk to Molly alone all day, and they had barely closed the door, when he said, ‘I couldn’t believe it the way that you stood up to Mammy today. You must have nerves of steel. You lo
oked scared to death when you first went into that room. I thought I would have to be the one to fight for you.’

  ‘In my rational moments I am still scared,’ Molly said. ‘But what she said was so unjust I was incensed and that sort of overrode the fear. I never complained to the priest, Uncle Tom. He asked me all the questions and when he said he would come and talk it over with my grandmother, I was pleased. No one could have predicted that she would go off her head the way she did. I honestly didn’t know what she is capable of, how brutal she can be.’

  ‘The point is,’ Tom said, ‘what are we going to do about it, because there will be occasions when you are in the house together and I am nowhere around?’

  ‘My father said fear had to be faced head on,’ Molly said. ‘He told me that everyone is scared at some time in their lives and if you don’t learn to cope with it, then it will control you. He freely admitted he had been terrified that day he had crawled out to reach Paul Simmons. I know he would agree with my stand against your mother because she is a bully and he was always adamant that no one should let a bully win.’

  ‘That is all well and good, Molly, but—’

  ‘You are always complaining that I am too fond of that word, “but”,’ Molly said with a smile. ‘I really think your mother is not right in the head and I will never let myself be such a victim again. I imagine I could give a good account of myself if I had to.’

  ‘And no one would blame you,’ Tom said. ‘God! When I saw what she had done to you, I wanted to kill her. If she hadn’t got out of my sight, I really think I would have hit her and that would have been the first and only time, and changed something between us for ever.’

  ‘Maybe it needs changing.’

  Tom shook his head. ‘Not in that way. God, I would feel even less of a man than I do already if I raised my hand to any woman, let alone my mother.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ Molly said. ‘Just don’t expect me to feel the same.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Tom said. ‘As I have already told you, no one will blame you, and for what it’s worth, you will have my support. Not that you seem to need it.’

  ‘I do,’ Molly said. ‘Maybe not to fight my battles, but in championing me in other ways. It is really very hard to live with someone who hates you so much. Without you I don’t think I would be able to cope.’

  ‘Molly, that makes me feel so much better,’ Tom said.

  ‘Good,’ Molly said. ‘And now if you are finished here, then let’s go inside and face the old dragon.’ But she was glad her uncle couldn’t see her insides turning somersaults.

  ‘I can hardly believe it,’ Cathy said, taking hold of her friend’s arm as they came out of the church the following Saturday morning. ‘I could scarcely credit it when I saw you come into the pew. How did you get your grandmother to agree? Thought you said she was dead set against it?’

  ‘She was – still is, probably,’ Molly said. ‘But this is all the priest’s doing.’ And she recounted what had happened when the priest called.

  ‘And she agreed just like that?’

  ‘No, not quite,’ Molly said, and was unable to prevent the shudder that ran through her body.

  Cathy was no fool. ‘She hit you, didn’t she?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Molly said. ‘She thought that I had gone complaining to the priest, though I hadn’t. He asked me why I wasn’t at confession more.’

  ‘And I suppose that cold you had …’

  ‘Was no cold at all,’ Molly finished for her. ‘My face was too battered to be seen and my body so stiff and sore I could hardly move.’

  ‘Poor you,’ Cathy said sympathetically. ‘What has she been like since?’

  ‘Well, it has been pretty fraught, as you might imagine, and I stayed in the bedroom for four days,’ Molly said. ‘In the end, though, I had to get up. I knew eventually I would have to face her, and the longer I left it, the harder it was going to be.’

  ‘God, you’re braver than me,’ Cathy said. ‘I would be a crumpled heap, and I think that’s how I would stay.’

  ‘If I had been, then she would have won, for it was what she wanted,’ Molly said. ‘I know now that from the moment she saw me, her intention was to bend me to her will as she did Uncle Tom. She isn’t right in the head, and reacting the way she does to things is crazy. Now, when we are in the house together and Tom not there, we seem to spend the time sort of circling each other like prizefighters.’

  ‘You haven’t got to put up with this kind of thing, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘You could tell someone. The gardaí …’

  Molly gave a hoot of laughter. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sure they would be very interested in me going in and complaining about my grandmother giving me a good hiding. They’d be likely to tell me not to be so bold and to run away and play. And in the unlikely event they did take it slightly more seriously, then it would be even worse for me. Just think about it for a minute.’

  Cathy didn’t need a minute. ‘I just wish I could do something to make things easier for you,’ she said.

  ‘You do, by being my friend. Going to your house every week helps me keep my sanity and now if I can come to Buncrana every fortnight it will be even better. Come on, I can put my own money in the post office today and I’ll keep some back to buy sweets. What do you say?’

  Cathy saw that the subject of the beating was now closed, and she gave Molly’s arm a squeeze and said, ‘I say that you are the nicest friend a girl can have.’

  ‘And I say that that is cupboard love,’ said Molly.

  A fortnight later it would have been Molly’s mother’s birthday, and Tom knew why the girl was feeling so dispirited and low, because he remembered the day his wee sister was born. He was sent off on the horse, not Dobbin then, to alert Maggie Allinson, who did as a midwife for them all around, and he recalled he was nearly been blown right off the horse, and more than once, for the wind was nearly fierce enough to raise the thatch on the roof.

  Maggie had come back with him astride the horse, holding him tight around his waist, for she said she wouldn’t risk to take the trap and her smallish pony out in such a gale, and it wasn’t long altogether till the wails of a newborn filled the cottage. Suddenly the wind howling and moaning and hurling itself about like a creature in torment ceased to matter.

  Only moments later, Tom had gazed with awe at the tiny, perfect and oh so beautiful little baby and that is what he told Molly that day in the cowshed.

  ‘A baby is a wonderful thing,’ he said. ‘Like a little miracle that seems to get into your heart straight away somehow. I had to leave the room and I went out into the teeth of that storm and cried my eyes out.’

  Molly’s eyes were moist too as she said, ‘I am glad you told me, Uncle Tom. Granddad used to tell me tons about Dad as a wee boy and when he was born and everything, but Mom … I suppose because this home was closed to her, she cut her early life from her memory, saying only that she was spoiled. Anyway, she said once that it made her unhappy to think how it had been, so I never asked again.

  ‘Dad’s birthday was the day after the funeral,’ she went on. ‘Mom was so pleased thinking she would be out of hospital in time for it and then it sort of passed in a blur of sadness. Anyway, when I sad this to Granddad, he said we should use their birthdays as a time to remember their lives, which were happy and fruitful, and not concentrate on the day or way they died, I think that is a good idea, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ Tom said sincerely and then added gently, ‘Molly, when did he tell you this?’

  Molly clapped her hand to her mouth. Too late she remembered that Tom knew nothing about the letters. So many, many times, going or returning from the McEvoys, she had nearly mentioned the content of the letters, nothing earth-shattering, just some amusing incident her grandfather had mentioned, or a funny expression Hilda had used, and always she had stopped herself in time. And now this! What a stupid fool she had been. She groaned as she cov
ered her face with her hands.

  Tom peeled her hands away and held them between his own. ‘Look at me, Molly. This is me, your Uncle Tom, who means you no harm, who only has your good interests at heart, and nothing you tell me here will I tell another living soul, unless you give me leave to do so.’

  Molly lifted her eyes and knew that Tom spoke the truth, and so the story of the letters unfolded and Tom was amazed, and annoyed with himself for not thinking up his own plan to foil his mother. But when he said this, Molly told him it was better this way.

  ‘No one connects the letters to me at all, for they are addressed to Cathy, and knowing the postman to be curious, for they want to know all your business here, Nellie let on that Cathy has two English pen friends.’

  ‘You needn’t worry that I will betray you, Molly,’ Tom said. ‘But how do you go on for stamps and paper and all?’

  ‘Jack McEvoy—’ Molly got no further.

  ‘Well, that at least I can do for you,’ Tom said, glad he could have some involvement. ‘You can tell Jack McEvoy that your uncle will deal with it from now on. In fact, I will tell him myself when we go to Buncrana today.’

  Molly nearly told him about the money then, but she didn’t. That was her assurance that one day she would be free of this place and she could not risk that being compromised in any way. She knew Jack would say nothing to her uncle about the postal orders, because he had given his word and she trusted him.

  She did feel bad, though, when Tom said, ‘I’ll tell you what I feel so awful about too, now that I have given myself time to think about it, and that is the fact that when I demanded a wage for myself that day coming back from the town, I never gave you a thought at all. I know what it is to have no money. I was that way for years and from now on will give you sixpence every week.’

  ‘No, it’s all right, Uncle Tom, really.’

  ‘Of course it is not all right,’ Tom said, and with a smile went on, ‘and don’t think I can’t afford it. I have plenty to buy enough Guinness to pour down my throat, as my mother is fond of saying every Saturday all the way home in the cart and when we both get in on Sunday evenings, and enough to buy baccy for my pipe. What she doesn’t know is I have a club I pay in to each week in the draper’s for my next suit for Mass, the first I will ever choose for myself, and some left over that I put in a Post Office account for a rainy day, so sixpence is neither here nor there, and this too will be a secret between us.’