by Anne Bennett
‘How much?’ Aggie asked. ‘But then what does the price matter? If it was tuppence I couldn’t afford it. I never have a penny piece to call my own and the only money I see is the two farthings I get before Mass each Sunday morning to put in the collection.’
‘That then is no good at all,’ McAllister said. ‘You best put that idea out of your head altogether. Anyway, it would mean travelling to Birmingham. You’d hardly want to do that, even if the money could be raised.’
‘Are you mad?’ Aggie demanded. ‘I tell you, Bernie, though I have never left Buncrana in the whole of my life, I would go to Timbuktu if I had to.’
‘So, what will you do for money?’
‘That’s your department.’
‘And just why would I give you money, even I had any to give?’
‘Because this child is half yours,’ Aggie said. ‘And if you refuse to help me, then tomorrow morning early I shall tell your wife the same. I know you are right in what you say about the men here, my father apart; perhaps they will all blame me, but what of your wife? If you refuse to help me before I end my life, I will tell her that, in the guise of taking me home, you raped me one bleak night in December. You will have my death on your conscience for the rest of your life,’ Aggie went on. ‘And when you do die you will roast in the flames of Hell.’
The flames of Hell didn’t unnerve McAllister as much as the thought of his wife getting to know, and he didn’t doubt for one minute that Aggie would do as she threatened. After all, what did she have to lose?
‘You will have cooked your goose right and proper then,’ he said.
‘Bernie, my goose was well and truly cooked that night in December,’ Aggie said softly. ‘And, anyway, I think Philomena should know the type of man she is married to.’
But Philomena did know. That was the very devil of it. She had given him an ultimatum and he knew her well enough to know that the threats she had made, should he stray again, were not idle ones. One hint of this and he would be out on his ear. The scandal would stick to him too. In fact he might even be forced to leave town.
Better by far to find some way of sending the troublesome Aggie to Birmingham to his sister, Gwen. There was always money in the till that he could lay his hands on. He had done it many times before when he had been short, and though Philomena gave out to him, she put up with it. His sister would know what to do with Aggie and where the ‘little problem’ could be dealt with. He had no doubt that Gwen would be agreeable to this; she had never refused to do anything he asked.
‘Say something, for God’s sake,’ Aggie pleaded.
McAllister realised the silence had stretched out between them. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Say I can get some money together and got you away, sent you to my sister, Gwen, in Birmingham – what would happen afterwards? Would you come back?’
Aggie let out a sigh of pure and blessed relief, but she said, ‘Huh, you know my parents and can ask that question? I’ll not be let back, never fear. And if you do this thing for me, then I will never breathe a word to Philomena, or indeed anyone else. As I said, I am ashamed of my part in it and I have no desire to broadcast it unless I have to.’
‘I would have to take you as far as Derry in the shop cart,’ Bernie said, ‘and in the early hours of the morning too, for you could hardly walk into the station in Buncrana in broad daylight and buy a ticket like any other body.’
Aggie knew she couldn’t, but she hadn’t thought as far as making arrangements. She was just thankful that he had thought of this, or in fact that he had agreed to do anything at all. She hadn’t been sure he would.
She was further gratified when he said, ‘I will write a note to my sister, to give you so that she knows all about it. She lives not far from the city centre and she will sort you out.’
Part of Aggie recoiled from being beholden to a relative of Bernie McAllister, who had got her into this mess in the first place, but then she had no idea what life was like outside her own small town. Maybe it was as well, certainly in the early days, to be with someone who knew what was what. So she said, ‘Thank you, Bernie. I really appreciate this.’
‘I should think so,’ McAllister said. ‘I am putting myself out a great deal to help you.’
‘I know you have put yourself out, but it is as much to protect your own skin as mine,’ Aggie retorted. ‘I am no fool.’
McAllister shrugged. ‘What is the good of arguing about it now?’ he said. ‘We need to deal with practicalities, like when you intend to go.’
Aggie swallowed deeply. She was scared rigid of leaving all that was familiar, of stepping into the unknown, but it had to be faced and there was no point in putting it off. ‘I suppose that it had better be done as soon as possible,’ she said.
‘I couldn’t agree more. How about the early hours of Wednesday morning?’
‘As soon as that?’
‘The sooner the better. And it is safer, so people say. Anyway, what is the purpose of delaying?’
He was right and Aggie knew that. She nodded. ‘All right then.’
‘I will be at the head of the lane with the shop’s cart at three o’clock,’ McAllister said. ‘You be ready because we have to be out of here as quickly as possible. We cannot take the risk of anyone seeing us.’
‘I will be there,’ Aggie promised, and she watched him move away until the darkness swallowed him.
Minutes later Aggie passed right by Tom, who had melted into the shadow of the hedge. His senses were reeling with what he had overheard, and he waited only until McAllister’s footsteps faded down the road before catching up with his sister.
‘Aggie.’
The girl nearly jumped out of her skin. ‘Tom, what are you doing here?’
‘What do you think?’ Tom said. ‘I am trying to look after you, and I tell you, Aggie, if I was fully grown I would take McAllister apart with my bare hands.’
‘That wouldn’t help the situation at all.’
‘Neither will this,’ Tom said desperately. ‘Aggie, you can’t just go to England. It’s madness.’
‘It’s the only thing I can do,’ Aggie said. ‘Look, Tom, there is no alternative. You do know what ails me, I suppose?’
‘I guessed, and then I heard you talking with McAllister after Mass. I was behind a tombstone and decided to follow you in case McAllister should try punching you again.’
‘I’m grateful, Tom, really I am,’ Aggie said. ‘But if you know it all then you will see that I cannot just bide here as if there is nothing the matter, though I will be heartsore to leave and I will miss you all greatly.’
‘But, Aggie, I might never see you again,’ Tom said plaintively.
Aggie swallowed deeply because she loved Tom dearly and would probably miss him the most of anyone.
‘That is a cross both of us must bear.’
‘Aye, because of bloody McAllister.’
‘And me, Tom.’
‘Don’t give me that,’ Tom said. ‘I saw you when you came in that night and you wouldn’t have known what you were doing. This is all McAllister’s fault, and because of him I will lose my sister.’
Aggie heard the break in Tom’s voice. She swallowed the lump threatening to choke her and put her arms around him. Generally they weren’t a family that hugged and kissed, and such displays of affection would have embarrassed Tom in the normal way of things. That night, however, it seemed right. Tom hugged his sister back. He would always miss her. Hatred for McAllister burned in his soul.
Twice the next day, Thomas John asked his daughter if she was all right because she couldn’t shift the melancholy that seemed to have settled around her, and each time she said she was fine.
‘You seem out of sorts,’ he had said the first time and she had assured him she felt all right.
The second time he said, ‘Is there anything on your mind, Aggie? You look sad.’
Aggie managed a watery smile for her father. ‘I can’t go round with a great grin plastered over my face all an
d every day,’ she said as light-heartedly as she could.
Thomas John, however, mentioned his concerns to Biddy. She didn’t see Aggie as a person very often, just as an extra pair of hands, but when her husband brought it to her attention, she could see that something was amiss. ‘What’s up with you, girl?’
Knowing her mother wasn’t the sort to fob off, Aggie muttered that she felt under the weather.
‘In what way?’
‘It’s hard to explain,’ Aggie said. ‘All at sixes and sevens.’
Biddy looked at her daughter and saw her pinched white face, the blue bags beneath her eyes, and the fact that there was so little flesh on her bones. ‘Maybe your daddy was right and you needed a tonic after the measles, for you had it worse than any of the others. Must be that that has affected your monthlies too.’
‘Yes, that must be it,’ Aggie said in little more than a whisper.
‘Yes, well, that can make a person feel sluggish, I always think,’ Biddy said. ‘If you don’t pick up in the next few days I will get your daddy to take you into Buncrana to see the doctor.’
Tom came in the door just as Biddy said this and heard her. His eyes met Aggie’s sorrow-laden ones across the table and he felt pity for her wash over him. Yet he knew that if she was determined to leave, then it was best to go as soon as she could. To delay at all would open a can of worms that would be much better left sealed.
Aggie tried to lift her spirits for the rest of that day for the sake of her parents, but she knew she wasn’t very successful. Each passing moment meant she was one step nearer to leaving this house and her family for ever. She was glad to seek the solitude of her bedroom away from the watchful and concerned eyes of her father.
She didn’t feel the slightest bit tired. Sitting down on the bed, she wished she could have embraced her father that night as she had Finn, until the child had complained that she was holding him too tight. She didn’t try it with Joe, or Tom either, for that would have certainly brought comment, and while Tom might have understood, Joe certainly would have been horrified at her girlish sloppiness. For her parents too there had been just the usual peck on the cheek, but she knew her disappearance would be a grievous blow for her father, for he had a soft spot for her.
She would always miss them, not just her father but her mother too, though she could be sharp and unfair at times; the darling baby, Nuala; cheeky wee Finn, and Joe, who was always telling them the exotic places he would visit when he was a grown man; and her favourite and special brother, Tom.
Everything was familiar: the cottage where she had been born and reared, where the hens pecked at the grit in the cobbled yard before the door. She would even miss the indolent, smelly pig in the sty beside the house, too fat to move easily and too lazy to care. Farmland stretched on every side, some fields filled with cows, with their big eyes and swollen udders as they placidly chewed the cud, while others were cultivated, and the hillsides were dotted with sheep.
She had looked on the farm so many times without really appreciating the beauty of it as she did now. She knew that she was doing the only thing she could do to save her family’s disgrace, but it was hard and she was bloody scared stiff.
She got up and took a turn around the room, which suddenly seemed very dear to her, and she touched each item in turn until she came to the crib. Then she looked down at her little sister’s podgy hands either side of her head in the total abandonment of sleep and traced her finger gently around one until the baby gave a sigh and her hand closed in a fist. Aggie leaned over the crib and gently kissed Nuala’s little pink cheek as the tears began. She tried to stifle them, but Tom, lying awake too, heard. He wished he could go in, but knew Aggie would probably be embarrassed.
Eventually, awash with tears, she threw herself on the bed and closed her eyes.
She awoke stiff and shivering with cold, and saw with horror the clock said the time was half-past two. She roused herself quickly and began to gather the things that she was taking with her. She decided to travel in her clothes for Mass as they were the smartest she had: woollen plaid dress, black stockings and button boots, a proper coat and matching bonnet. She had taken her mother’s large bag that she took when she went into Buncrana on Saturday, because she didn’t have anything else, and into it she put underwear and nightwear, her two everyday dresses and cardigan and her warmest thickest shawl.
She had one last look around the room and then eased the window up gently and climbed through it. But, as quiet as she tried to be, Tom heard as he was lying wide-eyed on the bed, worry for his sister driving sleep from him, though he was aching with tiredness. He pulled the curtain aside and saw her walk by the window. Hurriedly he dressed and followed her.
Aggie was glad when Tom fell into step beside her. She hadn’t expected it when he had to be up at five for the milking anyway, but she valued his company. They didn’t talk much. They had said all that needed to be said, but Aggie thought for her brother to be there walking by her side was comforting. Tom wished with all his heart that he was older, that he could care for Aggie, and if her parents wouldn’t let her stay at home then he would take her some other place and see to her. It seemed abhorrent to him that a young girl should travel so far completely alone and all because a man had taken advantage of her.
McAllister was there waiting for her and impatient. ‘Where have you been?’ he hissed. ‘For this to work I must be back in Buncrana with the horse stabled before the place is awake. Come on now, get up and be quick about it.’
Aggie handed McAllister her bag and turned to Tom. ‘Goodbye, then.’
‘Goodbye, Aggie,’ Tom said. ‘Look after yourself.’
‘I’ll try,’ Aggie said, putting her arms rather awkwardly around her brother.
‘We haven’t time for this,’ McAllister snarled.
Aggie turned on him. ‘Listen here, you,’ she said. ‘Your life will not change in any way, shape or form because of that one night. I am leaving behind my home and all in it that I hold dear. I know that I will see none of them ever again and you dare complain because I spend a few minutes saying goodbye to my brother?’
McAllister said no more, for he knew that Aggie had a point. She kissed Tom on the cheek before climbing in beside McAllister. The cart rolled down the road almost silently and Tom saw with surprise that the horse’s hoofs had been wrapped in cloths so that they would make little noise. He had to admit that that was a wise move, for the sound of hoofs on the road could be heard for miles in the still and quiet of the early hours.
He yawned, weariness suddenly hitting him, and with the cart lost in the darkness he turned back to the farmhouse.
FIVE
‘Have you anything to wrap around yourself?’ McAllister asked Aggie when they had gone a little way down the road. ‘You are shivering like a leaf.’
‘It isn’t with cold, or at least not that alone,’ Aggie said. ‘It’s mainly fear.’
‘Well, I can do nothing about the fear; you must combat that on your own,’ McAllister answered. ‘But if you have brought a shawl or anything, I would put it around you, that’s all I’m saying.’
Aggie did then delve in the bag and pull out the shawl, but even wrapped tight around her, it did nothing for the icy dread that seemed to be seeping all through her body.
‘Are you sure your sister won’t mind me just landing on her?’ she asked at last.
‘No,’ McAllister said confidently. ‘I have explained it all in a letter that I will give you to show her. Big sister Gwen refuses me nothing.’
‘You might be a better man if she had a time or two,’ Aggie was tempted to say, but she bit back the retort. There was little point in annoying McAllister at this late stage, particularly when she needed information. So instead she said, ‘And what about getting rid of the baby and all? Will she know someone?’
‘Course she will,’ McAllister said. ‘You won’t be the first person she has helped, not by a long chalk. Everyone in the area knows her. Her name is
n’t McAllister but Halliday, Gwen Halliday, for she was married. She lives in Varna Road now in a place called Edgbaston. That’s not far at all from New Street Station in Birmingham city centre.’
‘Her husband might have something to say about me just turning up,’ Aggie said, ‘however lax Gwen seems to be.’
‘Oh, the old man is dead and gone now,’ McAllister said. ‘She was left with the one son to rear but he’s grown up too. See, Gwen is twelve years older than me and was more of a mother to me than my own ever was. She won’t let me down, never fear.’
‘Won’t she be shocked that this is your child that I am having to get rid of?’
‘Why should she be?’ McAllister said. ‘She knows what men and woman get up to. The prostitutes working the area were forever seeking her out. Can’t work if they have kids hanging on to them, can they now?’
Aggie had never been so shocked in the whole of her life. ‘Does she know prostitutes?’ she said.
In Buncrana such things just didn’t go on, but everyone knew that prostitutes were the very dregs of society.
McAllister laughed. ‘Time for you to grow up, little girl,’ he sneered. ‘When our father died, Gwen was fifteen and there were six mouths to feed. With my mother gone to pieces altogether, Gwen went on the streets to prevent us all starving to death. She eventually married one of the punters. Our mother had died by then too, and as I was the youngest she took me in to live with her and her husband. Then when she was widowed, she went back out on the streets again to provide for her son. That’s how it is.’
Aggie mouth dropped open. She had never been so shaken in the whole of her life. Surely that wasn’t really how things were, not in normal, respectable society.
‘What price is virtue, Agnes?’ McAllister went on. ‘Especially if the alternative is starving to death?’ He gave a wry laugh and added, ‘Not that Philomena knows any of this. She would react very much as you did, shocked to the core of her Roman Catholic soul. She doesn’t know much about my earlier life at all. She met Gwen just the once, at our wedding, and they never really hit it off. I used to visit Gwen on my own after that.’