by Anne Bennett
And then, as if aware of her scrutiny, Tom smiled. It transformed his whole face and Bridie’s heart skipped a beat.
‘I’m glad we’re travelling together, aren’t you?’ Tom said.
Oh yes, Bridie was glad all right, but she thought it best not to say so and instead just smiled. She was not to know how expressive her eyes were, and that Tom was delighted she obviously liked his company, and they chatted together as if they’d known each other years as the train pounded its way towards Belfast.
‘I don’t remember being this sick last time I came,’ Bridie said, wiping her mouth.
‘Aye, but early December is not the ideal time to cross the Irish Sea,’ Tom said, and Bridie looked out at the churning grey water, at the huge rolling breakers crashing against the sides of the side in a froth of white suds.
But, Bridie thought, the extreme sickness might have been due partly to her pregnancy, for she’d been nauseous enough at times without the help of the turbulent sea, but that was a secret she could share with no one and so she kept quiet and tried to control her lurching stomach.
It was too cold and altogether too wet to stay on deck any longer than necessary, but inside the smell was appalling, although the ferry wasn’t so crowded. The place smelt of people and damp clothes and vomit from those who’d not made it outside in time. But prevailing it all was the stink of cigarette smoke that lay like a blue fog in the air and the smell of Guinness.
It gagged in Bridie’s throat as Tom upended his case for her to sit on. ‘Sit there,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you something.’
‘Brandy!’ she said a few moments later. ‘I’ve never tasted brandy.’
Tom sat on his other case beside Bridie and said, ‘Then you’ve not lived. Get it down you. It will settle your stomach.’
‘First laced milk, now brandy,’ Bridie said with a smile. ‘And at this hour of the morning. Dear God, this is terrible.’
‘Aye,’ said Tom, catching her mood. ‘Here’s the two of us turning into lushes. Now drink it down and you’ll feel better.’
‘Oh God!’ Bridie cried with a shiver and a grimace at the first taste of it. ‘It burns. It’s horrible!’
‘Think of it as medicine,’ Tom said, and Bridie held her nose, for even the smell made her feel ill, and swallowed the brandy in one gulp, which left her coughing till her eyes streamed. ‘Maybe the cure is worse than the disease,’ she said eventually, when she had breath to do so.
Tom watched Bridie with a smile on his face, but his thoughts were churning. He’d never much bothered with girls before. In truth, maybe never allowed himself to be attracted to any. He knew all about girls though, hadn’t he got three sisters? But this girl he’d just met was affecting him strangely. It wasn’t her beauty alone, though that was startling enough, especially her enormous brown eyes with just a hint of sadness or worry behind them and her creamy skin. It was much more. She was small and fragile-looking for a start and had such an air of vulnerability.
Tom couldn’t understand how she’d affected him so. Just looking at her, he’d felt a stirring in his loins that was so pleasurable, it was bound to be sinful and his heart thudded against his chest. He wanted to hold her close and protect her against anything that might possibly hurt her or upset her.
Bridie, with no inkling of Tom’s thoughts about her, suddenly yawned in utter weariness. She’d had little sleep except for the bit she’d snatched in Strabane. Her smarting eyes felt very heavy and she closed them for a while to rest them.
But she swayed on the case as sleep almost overcame her and she jerked herself awake again. ‘Are you tired?’ Tom asked, and at Bridie’s brief nod, he went on, ‘Lean against me if you want, I won’t let you fall.’
Bridie knew there was no way she should lean against some strange man, and though she liked Tom Cassidy, she had only known him a matter of hours. But she couldn’t keep her eyes from closing; they seemed to have a mind of their own and for all she tried to force them open, it was no good.
Her drooping head fell on to Tom’s chest and to prevent her falling off the case, he tentatively put his arms about her.
By the time the boat was ready to dock, Tom had an ache in his back from supporting his own weight and Bridie’s. Yet it hardly mattered compared to the pleasure he had from holding Bridie in his arms that he’d wrapped so lovingly around her.
But, when Bridie awoke, she was overcome with humiliation for allowing herself to fall asleep leaning against a man in that compromising way. She remembered the last time she’d been held by a man – it had been her uncle Francis’s arms around her and she stiffened at the memory of it.
Tom sensed her withdrawal, but he put it down to embarrassment and decided to make no comment about it.
Bridie realised when they docked in Liverpool and Tom helped her find a post office to send the telegram from before the train left that she’d never have managed without him beside her. ‘I was lucky to have met you at Strabane,’ Bridie said to him as they settled in the carriage. ‘I’d have missed this train and would have had to have waited for the next one.’
‘You’d probably have had a long wait,’ Tom said. ‘The trains are here to meet the ferries and there won’t be one now for hours.’
‘And you, the seasoned traveller, would know all about it,’ Bridie said with a smile. ‘Why did you go home so often? Were you very homesick?’
‘In a way,’ Tom said. While Bridie had slept on the boat he’d decided to himself that he would tell her what he’d been doing in Liverpool. It was not a fact he readily advertised, because he found people often treated him differently, but if he wished to see Bridie again, he felt she ought to know. ‘I was a child just when I left the first time,’ he said. ‘I was in a seminary in Liverpool, training to be a priest.’
‘A priest!’ Bridie jumped away from Tom as if she’d been shot. The thought paramount in her head was to thank God she’d not poured out her sordid story to him as she’d longed to on the train. She’d have hated to see his lips curl in disgust and the scorn in his eyes had she given in to such a weakness. But if he was a priest, why had he held her that way in the boat? ‘So you’re a priest then?’ she said.
‘No, no, I’ve never been ordained,’ Tom said. ‘I was to be, but I began to have doubts. The Bishop sent me to Birmingham to work in the Mission with a Father Flynn, a good friend of his. He expects me to work off any reservations I have and go back for ordination.’
‘And will you?’
Tom shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not cut out to be a priest, I know that now. My vocation was one planted and fuelled by the visiting missionaries. Once I’d actually given voice to this possible vocation, which was probably little more than a childish fancy, things were taken out of my hands. My mother had me up before the priest faster than the speed of light. He was delighted, feather in his cap, and he informed the Bishop.
‘Events went so fast after that that I had no time to think. The priest told my mother she’d given up her only son to God, the ultimate sacrifice and one she’d be rewarded for in Heaven, and I was whisked away to a seminary in Liverpool.’
Bridie nodded, for she knew how it was. Catholic mothers were often told by the priests that their first son should belong to God. Mothers would often offer prayers and novenas that their eldest son, or failing that one of his male siblings, might have the vocation to become a priest.
Fathers usually didn’t have the same yearning at all. They looked to their sons to take over the farm or family business, to give them a hand and ease their load. But even they found that if a child admitted to having a vocation to enter the priesthood, their standing in the community was raised. They would be set apart, a holy and devout family, and people would be behave differently, more respectfully before them.
She knew too that to decide to leave the seminary, to decide the priesthood was not the line a boy wanted to follow, was worse than not going in the first place. It would be disgrace on the family and so she en
quired gently, ‘Do your parents know about your doubts?’
‘Yes … Well, I didn’t tell them straightaway that I’d decided to leave, but I dropped broad hints. In the end I had to come out with it though; I thought it wasn’t fair for them to harbour false hopes.’
‘And?’ goaded Bridie.
‘They refuse to accept it,’ Tom told her. ‘My mother says she will have to hang her head in shame. She’ll not be able to face the neighbours. Of course she was allowed to run up tick in the shop and my father a big bill in the pub on the strength of my becoming a priest.’
‘I tried to explain it to them. I tried to say it had not ever been a true vocation, but an idea fostered by the parish priest and the Brothers that taught at the school and magnified by the visiting missionaries, until it was easier to go along with it than not. And then of course I was just a boy. Obedience had been drummed into me. I couldn’t defy a priest, a teaching Brother or a missionary Father.’
Bridie knew he could not, but she could also imagine Tom’s parents’ reaction, though she felt sorry for him and thought he was doing the right thing. ‘I’m glad you’re not going to be a priest if you feel that way.’
Tom smiled wryly. ‘You’re the only one then,’ he said. ‘I’m not flavour of the month at home. And then, after all the talk and explanation, my mother said to me this morning, “Don’t let’s be having any more of that sort of talk, so. Go on back now and do your duty, for it will break my heart now if you give it up.” How d’you counter that?
‘She can’t see that my work with the Mission is as worthwhile as that of a priest. The people I work with are the unsung heroes in our society, not those dashing off to save the souls of the heathens in Africa, but those who toil tirelessly and usually for little or no reward to alleviate suffering and abject poverty in their own towns and cities. I respect them so much.’
Bridie heard the fervour in Tom’s voice and the light of enthusiasm and purpose in his eyes and had great admiration for him. She knew it was not a weakness to admit he’d made a mistake, but a strength.
She’d love to see him again, but she could not. He was the first man she’d ever felt so drawn to and she sensed he would be kind and considerate, at least up to a point. She was sure that point would be reached if he had an inkling of what she was carrying, the trouble she was in. Dear God! She had a feeling she wouldn’t see him for dust. Not that she would ever put it to the test. Anyway, she told herself firmly, what right had she allowing herself to be drawn to any man when she had this massive problem to overcome.
She knew he liked her; she wasn’t stupid. Despite that, she decided after she left Tom at the station, she’d make absolutely sure she’d never see him again and she was surprised at the sharp stab of regret she felt at making that decision.
CHAPTER SIX
Mary was glad to see her young sister arrive safe and sound and thanked Tom Cassidy, whom Bridie introduced her to, for looking after her so well. She could tell that the man more than liked her young sister but that Bridie was giving him no encouragement. Quite right too, Mary thought. After all, she knew nothing about the man and if Bridie was in the condition that Mary suspected she was, a man was the last thing she needed.
Bridie, for all that she knew she couldn’t see Tom again, was sorry to see him go and even sorrier when she realised that she’d hurt him. ‘I thought you liked me?’ Tom had said plaintively when he’d tried and failed to get Bridie to agree to meet him again.
‘I did … I do.’
‘But not enough to see me again?’
‘Oh Tom, I hardly know you.’
‘Well, isn’t that the point? You’ll get to know me. We’ll get to know each other.’
‘No, Tom.’
‘But why?’
‘I just … it’s just … I’m not ready for anything like that.’
‘It can be on your terms,’ Tom had pleaded. ‘We can meet just as friends if you want to?’
Oh, how Bridie had longed to say she’d love to get to know him better, to have a courtship like any girl her age would want. But she knew she couldn’t. So regretfully, she’d shaken her head. ‘Birmingham is new to me. I need to be on my own – to be free. I’m sorry, Tom, but that’s how it is.’
‘Is that your last word?’
‘It is.’
‘Then,’ Tom had said, ‘I suppose I must accept it.’
And he did accept it, though she could feel still his hurt and confusion. She’d introduced him to Mary and he’d been as polite as good manners dictated, but he couldn’t hide his unhappiness. Mary, however, had no time to worry over it. She wanted to get Bridie home as soon as possible, to get to the root of the problem, and Bridie was not averse to this either. With a bass bag in each hand, they gave a last wave to Tom before making their way to the tram stop outside the station.
The short winter day had ended and night had fallen again, bringing with it sleety rain. Bridie gave a sigh. ‘It rained nearly all the way to Strabane,’ she said. ‘Everything I wore and carried is probably ruined – my coat is still damp, even though I wore that Tom Cassidy’s coat for most of the journey and we tried to spread mine out as much as we could to dry it out on the train.’
Mary stared at her. ‘Strabane!’ she repeated. ‘How the Hell did you get to Strabane?’
‘I cycled.’
‘Cycled? All the way to Strabane?’
‘Mary, I had to go so far,’ Bridie said. ‘What was the good of me sneaking away in the dead of night and then being recognised at the first station?’
‘But still, Bridie, it was one Hell of a jaunt. God! It must be twenty miles – more even.’
‘I know,’ Bridie said ruefully. ‘My bottom can testify to it. In fact my whole body can. I’ve never ached so much nor been so cold or miserable in all my life. And I used your bike, Mary, and I had to leave it at Strabane. I’m sorry, I could see no way of getting it back to the farm.’
‘Well, it’s hardly needed there now,’ Mary said. ‘I can’t see Mammy and Daddy going out for a spin on it. Mind you, I’m surprised it wasn’t rusted away to nothing, it was second-hand when I got it.’
‘It was a bit,’ Bridie said. ‘I rubbed a lot off and pumped up the tyres, but I had to do it when I had a minute and no one else was about.’
‘How did you know the way?’
‘I didn’t,’ Bridie admitted. ‘I hadn’t a clue, I followed the rail bus tracks.’
‘God, Bridie, that was clever,’ Mary said admiringly. ‘And brave. Coming all that way by yourself in the dead of night.’
‘I wasn’t brave,’ Bridie said. ‘I was scared stiff a lot of the time, but I was also desperate.’
Her voice sounded forlorn and Mary felt so much pity for her her heart ached. She knew, however, if she showed sympathy openly, Bridie would probably cry. And so she said, ‘Never mind, pet, we’ll soon be home.’
‘Where are the weans?’ Bridie asked as they settled themselves on the tram.
‘Ellen was minding them till Eddie got home,’ Mary said. ‘I don’t take them out in weather like this unless I have to. Mind you,’ she said, ‘Eddie will probably be home now and spoiling them to death. He’s that soft with them, but then,’ she added, ‘I’d rather have him that way than the other way and the weans adore him.’
Bridie was pleased for Mary, even though she felt a stab of envy. It was obvious she still loved Eddie and that they were happy together. She couldn’t imagine anything so wonderful happening to her, not now.
‘I’ve left a stew ready to heat up,’ Mary went on. ‘You need something to stick to your ribs in this weather.’
Bridie was pleased at the mention of food. The breakfast she’d shared with Tom had done her little good as she’d deposited most of it in the Irish Sea and after her sleep on the ferry she’d woken up very hungry. At Crewe, where they’d had to change trains, Tom had bought them both tea and sandwiches, but that had been a while ago and her stomach was complaining again.
; Once in the house, Bridie found it just as Mary said. Eddie was cavorting on the floor with his two wee sons and they were squealing with delight. ‘Will you get up out of that, Eddie,’ Mary said, though Bridie saw the twinkle in her eye. ‘God knows, I don’t know who has the least sense.’
Eddie got to his feet and grinned at her. ‘We’re only having a bit of a game,’ he said. ‘And I laid the table first and lit the gas under the stew. I knew you’d be back soon.’ Then he looked past his wife to Bridie and smiled at her. ‘Hello, Bridie,’ he said. ‘You’re welcome.’
‘Thanks, Eddie.’
Mickey hid behind his father, but Jamie remembered the young aunt who’d played with him in Ireland. ‘I’ve been to your house, haven’t I?’ he said. ‘Are you coming to stay in ours now?’
‘For a wee while only. Do you mind?’
Jamie shook his head. ‘Mammy said you’re to go in the attic with me and Mickey,’ he said, and he looked disparaging at his little brother before continuing, ‘He’s just a baby. He’s scared of you.’
‘Not scared, just a wee bit nervous,’ Bridie said. ‘You were probably the same at his age.’
‘I was not!’
‘Jamie, stop plaguing the life out of your aunt Bridie and sit up to the table this minute,’ Mary said from the cooker, and Bridie felt saliva in her mouth at the thought of food.
Later, with the children in bed and Eddie despatched to the pub, Mary handed Bridie a cup of tea and sat down opposite her near to the hearth. ‘Well?’
And because there was no point in beating about the bush, Bridie said, ‘I’m pregnant.’
It was what Mary had guessed from the cryptic letter Bridie sent, but she’d hoped and prayed she was wrong. It was the very worst news any unmarried girl could deliver and with a groan Mary replied, ‘Oh God.’