by Anne Bennett
‘But didn’t you have your shawl on?’ Biddy asked.
Aggie had to think fast. ‘Yes, but it fell off as I tipped forward. Anyway, after that I was ill and sort of forgot all about the dress.’
‘All right,’ Biddy said. ‘We’ll say no more about it now. You’ll not do such a thing again, sure you won’t.’
‘No, Mammy,’ Aggie said fervently. ‘I think I can promise you, hand on heart, that I will never do such a thing again.’
Biddy was satisfied but Aggie breathed a sigh of relief, glad that she wasn’t expected to move anywhere because she didn’t think she could have done so. As it was, she had to lie on her stomach to sleep, and despite the cold couldn’t bear even her nightdress or the bedclothes to touch her skin.
Sometime during the night she was woken with drawing pains in her stomach, similar to those she had each month. ‘Oh, praise God,’ she breathed in thankfulness. She would endure any amount of beatings if it would also beat out the child she knew she was carrying. However, after a time the pains in her stomach eased and on checking herself, she saw that there was no blood and she lay in the bed and thought of what she was to do, her mind in a wild panic.
She knew that Biddy would soon tumble to what was wrong, for there would be no pads left to soak in the bucket. She was also aware that she had got away with it so far only because first her mother had been so busy with them all so ill and then was taken bad herself, but time was against her now. That last beating would be nothing to the beating she would have to endure if her mother tumbled to the fact that she was having a child, and her unmarried. She would kill her altogether then. Aggie shuddered in fear, for her mother’s true rages were absolutely terrifying.
Worry drove away all thought of sleep, but by morning she was no further forward. She seriously thought of throwing herself in the river, but that was a mortal sin and she would roast in Hell’s flames. No, she decided, she had to see Bernie McAllister, though her insides crawled at the thought, and tell him what he had done to her. There was no help for it. Maybe he would think of something. He had to think of something, and quickly too, Aggie told herself, because it was more than half his fault. She would have to wangle it so that she had a quiet word with him after Mass on Sunday.
The next day, Biddy let her stay in bed again and put goose grease on her back three times. When Aggie woke the second day after the beating she knew that, although she was stiff and sore, she would be better up and occupied because the worry was driving her demented and there was far too much time to think just lying there. She rose gingerly and was immediately assailed by nausea and vomited into the chamber pot she’d grabbed from beneath the bed.
The following day, Tom said as he crossed through her room from his and his brothers’ beyond, ‘You all right, Aggie?’
Aggie turned to look at her brother and even in the dim light of the lamp Tom held, he could see the bleached pallor of her face and the way her eyes seemed to stand out in her head, but her voice at least was firm enough and quite sharp.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Well, it’s just that I heard you being sick this morning, and yesterday as well.’
Oh God! Aggie thought. How hard she had tried to stop the nausea rising to her throat, but had been unable to. When the bout was over she had climbed out of the window to throw the vomit into the gutter before swilling the pot itself with water from the rain barrel beside the door. But now Tom knew something was up, and if he or Joe were to get one hint of what ailed her and said something about it before she could snatch a word with Bernie, the whole thing would blow up around her.
So she faced Tom and said, ‘I had something that disagreed with me, that’s all.’
‘What? Two days running?’
‘Yes,’ Aggie snapped. ‘Don’t fuss, Tom.’
Tom shrugged and went on out before his father would give out to him, like he did every morning to Joe, who liked his bed too much to be up and at it.
With Tom gone, Aggie sat down on the bed again. She knew she should have been raking up the fire and putting on the kettle, but she felt so tired and drained.
She knew if she lingered any longer her mother would give out to her, and with a sigh she got to her feet. Joe, his hair still tousled from sleep, clattered through the room, pulling on a jacket as he went, the untied laces of his boots dangling, threatening to send him flying.
‘Ssh,’ Aggie said warningly. ‘You’ll have Finn and Nuala awake with your carry-on.’
‘Sorry, Aggie,’ Joe said. ‘Only I’m late, see.’
‘As ever. You should get up when Tom calls you,’ Aggie smiled.
‘I’m still tired then.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ Aggie said with feeling. ‘But get you away now before Daddy bites the head off you.’
Joe shrugged. Nearly every morning his father was cross with him and he was used to it now. Daddy said he would never make a farmer and Joe wasn’t sure he wanted to be. It was a grind of a life, though Tom seemed to like it well enough.
And Tom did. Usually milking was one of his most favourite occupations, finding it soothing to lean his head against the velvet flank of the cow and see the bucket between his legs fill with the creamy milk.
However, that morning his thoughts were far away and Aggie was at the forefront of them. He knew she wasn’t right, whatever she said, and he knew his father was worried about her too. Only the previous evening, watching Aggie pick at the meal before her, he had said to their mother, ‘Aggie’s never really perked up after that dose of measles she had, I’m thinking, and not eating enough to feed a bird. Maybe we should ask the doctor for a tonic.’
Aggie had said she was all right, that she was just not hungry, but she had a sort of hunted look on her face.
Thomas John was far from satisfied but Aggie got so agitated that he said he would leave it so for now, but if she didn’t pick up in a day or two he would ask the doctor to take a look at her.
Tom was the only one to notice the horrified and frightened expression on Aggie’s face as she began to collect up the plates. Did she think he was some sort of idiot to think he would believe that something had disagreed with her to make her so sick?
Nuala had just passed her first birthday and he remembered that when her mother was carrying her, she had been sick every morning. So was Aggie having a baby? She could well be, though it was the very worst thing that could happen to a young unmarried girl and something that couldn’t be hidden either. He wondered what in God’s name she intended to do about it if she was.
In the bedroom Aggie was having similar thoughts, and she hoped that Bernie McAllister might have some sort of plan up his sleeve, or she was done for: her life would be over before it had really begun. She felt tears sting the back of her eyes and brushed them away impatiently.
The time for crying was long gone. She mentally braced her shoulders and opened the door into the kitchen to start the day.
The next Sunday, Aggie inveigled herself close to McAllister as she left the church, and once outside she whispered, ‘I need to speak to you.’
McAllister’s eyes widened salaciously. ‘Can’t wait for another session, is that it?’
‘Ssh,’ Aggie cautioned, looking anxiously around at the people streaming out of the church to see if anyone was in earshot. ‘Not here. Come a little way in amongst the gravestones.’
Tom had seen her talking with McAllister and he skirted the back of the church and secreted himself behind another gravestone, not far from where they had stopped. He could plainly see that Aggie was angry with what McAllister had said and he heard her say sharply, ‘You disgust me. It gives me no pleasure to have to seek you out this way, but I needed to see you as soon as possible.’
‘What about?’ Bernie asked suspiciously.
‘Shh, I can’t tell you anything here,’ Aggie said. ‘We daren’t risk being overheard. I can’t get away easily in the day, and certainly not without permission being granted and a load of questions
asked. Anyway, there are too many people about in the day, but the house is quiet before half-past ten most nights, so could you meet me at the head of the lane tomorrow night about that time?’
Bernie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Dare say I could,’ he said. ‘But I wish you would stop all this secrecy and tell me what it is all about.’
‘You’ll know all tomorrow.’
‘Not a little hint?’
‘None,’ Aggie retorted. ‘I need to go. My mother is looking for me.’ And catching sight of Biddy standing at the gate gesturing to her impatiently, she scurried towards her.
Bernie watched her go with a lewd smile on his lips.
This was noticed by his wife, who followed the direction of his gaze and her eyes came to light on Aggie Sullivan. Surely to God he hadn’t designs in that direction. Thomas John would tear him apart if he thought he was messing with his daughter. Well then, let him, she suddenly thought and, God forgive me, I would even help him, for Bernie is little use to me either in the shop or out of it. It would make no odds to me if he was to meet a sticky end. In fact, it would be one less thing to worry about.
As Philomena turned away, Tom emerged from behind the tombstone. He had listened to the whole conversation and he was more worried than ever. He knew for certain now what Aggie wanted to see McAllister about because every morning she was sick. She was expecting the man’s child, and the shame and disgrace of it would destroy them all.
He did wonder what Aggie expected McAllister to do about it, but he knew he needed to be told. However, Tom decided, after what McAllister had done to her before, there was no way he was going to let her meet him alone and in the pitch-black. He wouldn’t tell her, though. He would just go after her and try to keep her safe.
FOUR
The clock beside Aggie’s bed said twenty past ten when she began to dress. Tom, in the room beyond, listening intently, heard Aggie, and slid out of bed carefully so as not to wake Joe or Finn. When he had followed his two brothers to bed an hour before, he had thought to get undressed was a waste of time, but if Finn or Joe were to wake, they might be very interested as to why he had got into bed with all his clothes on and the least people knew about this the better for Aggie. He eased the window up and the blast of cold air caused Finn to mumble in his sleep and turn over. He didn’t wake, though, and Tom was through the window in seconds, pausing only to close it again because the night air was piercingly cold.
The sky was clear, the stars twinkling silver while the moon, like a golden orb, lighted the way up the lane enabling Tom to see to keep a sensible distance between him and his sister.
Aggie, unaware of this, reached the road and looked about her anxiously. What if the man didn’t come? She bit her lip in agitation and the next minute felt strong arms encircle her as Bernie stepped out of the shadows.
‘Leave go of me,’ Aggie said, twisting out of his grasp.
‘What’s up with you?’ McAllister demanded. ‘Last time you couldn’t get enough of it, so don’t come the innocent with me.’
‘Stop it, Bernie,’ Aggie said. ‘You know that just isn’t true. Anyway, you had me filled with poteen. When you left me, I could barely make it home.’
‘The poteen was just to release your natural desires,’ McAllister maintained.
Aggie shook her head. ‘I was filled with shame afterwards.’
‘That was afterwards and the way the Church has you,’ McAllister said.
‘And what purpose was the punch in the face?’ Aggie said bitterly.
‘Without the poteen you were too hidebound by the Church to enjoy it at all,’ McAllister said. ‘And you wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t do as you were told. Admit it. After you drank plenty, you put up no resistance at all.’
Every word McAllister spoke hammered into Aggie’s heart. She knew she hadn’t struggled enough. Some girls would rather die than give in to a man the way she had.
By the light of the moon, McAllister watched Aggie’s face, saw the shame and recognised the guilt that she hadn’t struggled enough. ‘You probably wouldn’t admit it in a million years,’ he said, ‘but you enjoyed it as much as me.’
His words inflamed Aggie. She wasn’t going to take all the blame. All right, maybe there was a flaw in her make-up, but there was a great, damaged slash in his.
‘Are you mad?’ she cried. ‘Dear God, you must be some sort of deranged creature if you think that I enjoyed one minute of that rape. And that is what it was, Bernie, rape. You forced me to have sex with you and when I would not submit to you willingly, you got me so drunk that I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. Did you not wonder what my parents would do when I arrived at their door as drunk as a lord, with the dress almost ripped from me and my stockings in my hand? Did you not worry that my father would come up to the house and beat you to pulp?’
‘I knew the likelihood was that your father wouldn’t be there,’ McAllister said. ‘I popped into Grant’s Bar before I went over to the church hall and your father was there celebrating the sale of a bull, and to all intents and purposes set to make a night of it.’
‘There was always my mother.’
‘You are a resourceful girl,’ McAllister said. ‘I was sure you would think of something. If you hadn’t I would have had to tell your mother the brazen hussy you had become.’
‘She… she wouldn’t have believed you.’
‘Oh, yes, she would,’ McAllister insisted confidently. ‘The way I would tell it she would believe it. But in the end that wasn’t necessary. She told Philomena the following Saturday that she had been at some neighbour’s house that night helping with a birth till nearly eleven. She said you had the measles too and wouldn’t be at any Christmas concert. So, you see, you got away with your waywardness.’
Aggie opened her mouth to say there was no waywardness on her part, but she shut it again, for what did it matter what he thought? They had to deal with the consequences of that night. She said, ‘I haven’t come to bandy words with you. How I behaved that night is neither here nor there, but what is important is the fact that I am carrying your child.’
She let the words sink in and though she could see little of his face she saw his eyes flash in the moonlight and heard his sudden intake of breath.
‘And now I want to know what you are going to do about it,’ Aggie added.
‘What d’you want me to do?’ McAllister demanded harshly. ‘Surely, this is your problem?’
‘It takes two, Bernie,’ Aggie cried. ‘I didn’t do it on my own.’
‘You offered it on a plate,’ McAllister said. ‘A man cannot be blamed for taking what is offered so willingly.’
‘Stop that talk,’ Aggie said. ‘It’s solutions I need now.’
‘What do you expect me to do? You’re pregnant and that’s that.’
‘Isn’t there some way of having it taken away?’
‘There are some places but it is illegal and dangerous.’
‘I don’t care how dangerous it is,’ Aggie declared. ‘You must help me, Bernie.’
McAllister shook his head. ‘I don’t have to do anything,’ he said. ‘When it becomes apparent, I could easily tell your father how you begged for it and how I tried to fight you off and eventually could hold off no longer. He will believe me. He would know how a man has no defence against a wanton woman so determined. He will wonder what sort of girl he has reared and then send for the priest.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about how my father would react,’ Aggie said stoutly. ‘He has great feeling for me, and after fifteen years surely he knows the kind of daughter he has? I should be careful, if I were you, for he might come for you some fine night.’
‘I don’t think so,’ McAllister said almost mockingly. ‘And whatever feeling he has for you, would it extend to rearing your bastard child? You would drag your family through the mud with you. They would never be able to hold up their heads again.’
Aggie knew McAllister was right. She imagined her father’s face filled
with shock and reproach and then disgust, and she knew she could not do that to him. The disgrace of it all would surely kill him.
‘And then of course there’s your mother,’ McAllister said, and, despite the darkness, saw the shudder that ran all through Aggie’s body as he added, ‘There are places you can be sent to, run by the nuns.’
‘Aye, and I would rather die than enter such a place,’ Aggie said fiercely and desperately. ‘Listen to me, for every word I speak is the truth: the river is where I will end my life if you refuse to help me.’
‘A little melodramatic, don’t you think?’ McAllister replied superciliously.
Aggie wondered why she had ever thought the man in any way attractive. When he reached out and tried to pull her closer, she shook him off. ‘Don’t even try to touch me! I am not being melodramatic. Far from it. I mean every word I say.’
‘So, what do you want me to do?’ McAllister cried. ‘I can’t work miracles even if I wanted to.’
‘Do you know someone who would get rid of it for me?’
‘Do you know what you are asking? You could be locked up if the police got wind of this. And as for such places themselves… you could die, Aggie.’
‘I’m prepared to take that risk,’ Aggie said. ‘Any risk at all, in fact.’
‘That’s as may be, but I don’t know anyone in the whole of Ireland that would even contemplate doing this.’
‘Then where?’
‘What makes you sure I know anyone at all?’
‘Don’t play games with me, Bernie. You either do or you don’t. Put me out of my misery, for God’s sake.’
McAllister heard the despair in her voice and sighed. ‘There was someone I knew would help you in Birmingham, England. It’ll cost you, though.’