Читать книгу Anne Bennett 3-Book Collection: A Sister’s Promise, A Daughter’s Secret, A Mother’s Spirit - Anne Bennett - Страница 19

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 looked 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 covered 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.’

Inside the house, Molly’s grandmother was waiting for her. She, of course, knew full well what day it was, but she had said nothing about it and Molly imagined that it was going to be a nonevent, not mentioned at all.

In this she was wrong, though the first thing Biddy growled out at them was that they had taken their time over the milking. Then her eyes slid over to Molly’s and she said almost as a challenge, ‘You know what day it is today, I suppose?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘I’m arranging for the nine o’clock Mass tomorrow to be said on your mother’s behalf,’ Biddy said. ‘I am seeing the priest in Buncrana today.’

Only Molly’s eyes betrayed her surprise and her grandmother went on, ‘Course, it might already be too late. Where d’you think she is now, Molly, your wonderful mother? Roasting in the flames of hell alongside your father, the pair of them screaming in agony each and every day, or did Jesus have mercy on her soul and cast her into purgatory, where she will languish for ever until there are prayers enough said to get her out?’

Biddy saw the look on Molly’s face, the raw pain of loss, and she smiled as she sneered, ‘I’m surprised that loving her as much as you say you did, you are not on your knees nearly all the night through, praying for the repose of your mother’s soul.’

Sheer willpower kept Molly’s voice steady as she said, ‘Mom was the best mother to myself and Kevin that she ever could be, and a good wife to our dad, who she loved with all her heart. They died together side by side and if there is anything good to come out of that awful day, then it is that, for one wouldn’t have ever been truly happy without the other.’

‘Do you think the Good Lord cares one jot about what sort of mother Nuala was to a godless man or mother to the children she should never have born him?’ Biddy screeched.

‘Do you know,’ Molly said, ‘my God is nothing like yours. Mine is good and kind and just, not hateful and vengeful like yours seems to be, and I think He cares about each and every one of us.’

‘Isn’t there something in the Bible where Jesus says He cares about the lilies in the field?’ Tom asked his mother. ‘Surely to God, some higher being who cares about a few flowers would care just as much or more about people, all people, I should think.’

Biddy surprisingly had no answer to that and Molly was grateful for her uncle’s intervention for she had been near breaking point and was surprised that he had seemed aware of that.

Despite this, though, she was very nervous at the accent the priest would put on the Mass the following day. She needn’t have worried. Father Finlay saw the white-faced Molly in the church and his heart went out to her. He spoke only positive things about the family, and Nuala and Ted in particular, and went on to talk of the tragedy that this loving couple and devoted parents, with so much life yet to live, should have been taken from it, leaving their children orphans and their relatives and friends devastated.

Outside the church, Biddy was not allowed to scurry home, driving Molly before her, for so many surrounded them, the men shaking Molly by the hand and many women, whom Molly saw had been crying, hugging her.

It was not the service Biddy had expected or asked for, and neither was the response afterwards, and she noted not one person had commended her for taking Molly to live with her. At one time she would have made Molly pay for that – a good thump or box on the ears would make her feel a whole lot better – but somehow, since that last beating, something had changed between them.

She had thought then the girl would be so cowed and frightened, but that hadn’t happened. Molly had continued to stand up to her and Biddy hadn’t any idea how to cope with that.

Molly had no idea of Biddy’s thoughts and when she roared at her later because she said the cabbage was inadequately drained, she flinched for the expected blow, and when it didn’t come she was more than surprised.

As the first anniversary of the deaths and funeral of Nuala and Ted approached, Molly felt her spirits plummet. She remembered each minute of the terrible day they both died, as sharply as if it was engraved on her heart, or at least she remembered it until the doctor’s tablets had done their job.

But because she hadn’t actually seen her parents’ bodies after their death, their funeral had affected her just as much. It was then she felt she had said goodbye to them properly and she had hardly been able to bear the sight of their coffins being lowered into the earth. She couldn’t seem to prevent the memories seeping into her consciousness, so vividly at times that she would gasp with the pain of it.

She knew her grandmother, watched her with a measure of satisfaction and she wondered anew about the woman’s mental state. Surely it wasn’t normal to take such pleasure in another’s misery?

Tom couldn’t seem to help her and as the day Nuala and Ted had both died drew near, he did ask Molly if she didn’t want to talk about it. But, she said talking would not help, it was just one more thing she had to live through. She got through it too, though she worked like an automaton, spoke only in answer to something someone asked her and that night Tom heard her crying for hours.

In fact, she was finding she was unable to sleep properly and if she did drop off, the lurid and upsetting dreams would soon wake her. Each day she felt worse and totally alone to deal with the dreadful memory of it all.

Tom was glad that that year the 26 April, which was the anniversary of the funeral, fell on a Sunday, knowing that Molly would at least have the love and support of the McEvoys for part of that day. He made it his business to make Nellie aware of the significance of the date.

That Sunday morning, everyone who saw Molly knew there was something grievously wrong with her. Not indeed that many did see her, because she entered the church with Biddy just as the Mass had begun and left before the last response. Nellie, who had hoped to have a quiet word with the girl, was prevented from doing this and was heartily glad she would see the child later that day.

Molly hadn’t really cared. By Sunday morning she had had no sleep for days and was too tired and downhearted to function properly. The pain in her head was so bad and she had the desire to curl up in a ball, her arms wrapped around her aching body, and howl like a wounded animal might.

Nothing touched her, not even Biddy’s ill humour, worse that day than ever, but she set off with her uncle as usual in the afternoon. Once they were away from the house, though, she said, ‘I don’t think I will go to Cathy’s today.’

‘Why not?’ Tom said. ‘They will be expecting you.’

‘I am too tired to make the journey,’ Molly said. ‘And I will be no fit company for anyone today.’

‘Listen to me, Molly,’ Tom said. ‘I could go up and explain to the McEvoys and yes, they would fully understand, for they know what day this is. True friends are there for you through the dark times too, and I think you need Nellie, Cathy and even Jack more than ever today. Their true and sincere sympathy might soothe you.’

‘I don’t think anyone can do anything to help me today,’ Molly said. ‘I just want to sink down into the grass here and let the world go on without me.’

Tom shook his head sadly. ‘Molly, if I could share any of this burden for you, I would gladly do so, for I see plainly how you are suffering at the moment, but I am certain that trying to hide away from this is not the way to deal with it.’

‘How d’you know that?’ Molly cried.

‘Molly, Nuala was my wee sister.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Molly said sarcastically. ‘Of course she was. I forgot, like you conveniently forgot about her. Some big brother you turned out to be. You didn’t even know my mother.’

‘D’you think that makes me feel any better?’ Tom demanded. ‘Do you not think that I am heartsore about the past years that now I can do nothing about? I can’t roll back time and have another go at it, though I wish with all my soul that I could, for in abandoning Nuala, I abandoned all of you. Whatever I do now, I could never make it up to you for that. How do you think that makes me feel?’

Molly looked at her uncle and saw, as well as sadness, there was guilt lodged in his eyes and even in the very set of his shoulders. ‘You must feel awful,’ she conceded, sorry for her outburst.

‘Sometimes,’ Tom admitted, ‘I almost despise myself for my weakness.’

‘You can’t expect to overcome years of dominance in five minutes,’ Molly pointed out.

‘No,’ Tom said, ‘I suppose not. But you know it is hard to look back on your life as a grown man and see what a fool you have been throughout most of it. And now,’ he said, ‘we are nearing Buncrana. Do I go on alone and make your excuses to the McEvoys or are you going along to tea, as they will expect?’

Molly knew she had to go. She couldn’t let her good kind friends down and knew uncle was right, they wouldn’t expect her to be sparkling company. And so she nodded her head, ‘All right then, I will go on to the McEvoys’.’

Nellie told Cathy to say nothing to upset Molly that day as they washed up after dinner, and Cathy was incensed that her mother thought she even had to mention it to her.

‘D’you think I would?’ she retorted. ‘What sort of friend do you think I am? If I was Molly I wouldn’t want the 23 or 26 April to exist on the calendar at all, but she is one of the bravest people I know, and she just might want to talk about it.’

‘Well, that is all right if she leads the conversation,’ Nellie said. ‘God knows, the child has plenty to put up with anyway.’

Cathy, looking at Molly a little later, thought there had been no need for her mother’s warning at all, for she could see clearly how sorrow-laden she was.

Nellie saw it too and she was also aware that she almost shrank from her embrace and Cathy’s and guessed that the only ones Molly needed that day were those of the people who had gone through it with her. Nellie couldn’t bring those people together, but she had the next best thing and she said, ‘I have letters for you, my dear, as you weren’t in Buncrana yesterday. Would you like to go up to Cathy’s room now and read them in peace?’

Nellie couldn’t have said anything better. Normally, Molly left the letters until she was alone at home, but that day she didn’t want to leave them to read, and she didn’t want anyone with her when she read them either. However, she knew that that was a rude thing to do in someone else’s house and she could hardly ban Cathy from her own bedroom, so she heard herself saying, ‘No, it’s all right.’

‘No it isn’t,’ Cathy retorted. ‘And we can’t make it all right. I think that you need to read those letters now. Don’t worry, I shan’t mind a bit.’

And so Molly read the words from those she had left behind, and tears dribbled down her cheeks. She knew it was right to cry and she felt their love and compassion for her, and she knew, though the letters had been written a few days before, Granddad, Kevin and Hilda would all be going through it the same as she that day and she was suddenly overcome with sadness.

When Cathy heard the anguished sobbing coming from her bedroom, she got to her feet to comfort her friend.

‘No,’ Nellie said. ‘It is neither of us Molly wants right now and she badly needs to shed those tears.’

Nellie was right. Molly needed no one. She keened aloud with her arms wrapped around her body, racked with sobs and she rocked backwards and forwards in her distress. Memories of her parents flitted across her mind and tears streamed from her eyes like a torrent, as she felt the aching loss of them anew.

Later, when all had been quiet for some time, Nellie crept upstairs to see Molly spreadeagled and fast asleep on Cathy’s bed. She had tear trails still on her cheeks and the letters were scrunched in her clenched hands. Nellie eased the letters from her and left them on the little cabinet by the bed, then fetched a blanket to put over Molly.

She slept deeply for three hours and as she struggled to wakefulness she realised that it was the first dreamless sleep she had had for days. Her heart felt strangely lighter, though she was mortified at falling asleep in someone else’s house. Nellie waved away her apologies and encouraged her sit up to the tea they had saved for her and eat her fill. Molly hadn’t felt hungry in days either, and suddenly she realised she was ravenous and she attacked the meal with gusto.

When she finished eventually and sat back with a sigh, Cathy said, ‘Feeling any better?’

‘Yes,’ Molly said. ‘Sort of lighter, you know?’

‘I know all right,’ Cathy said with a grin. ‘Don’t understand it, though. After the tea you have put away I would have said that you would have to feel a whole lot heavier.’

Molly found herself smiling at her friend, something else she hadn’t done in days. ‘You are a fool.’

‘I know,’ Cathy said with a sigh. ‘Didn’t we establish this early in our friendship?’

‘Yeah, we did.’

‘Well then, it’s old news you’re telling,’ Cathy said as her mother came into the room and beamed when she saw Molly’s empty plate.

‘That’s what I like to see,’ she said. ‘How do you feel now, Molly?’

‘Better,’ Molly said. ‘I don’t really understand why though, because nothing’s changed. To tell you the truth, I have dreaded this day arriving.’

‘That is quite understandable,’ Nellie said. ‘But I would say that it will never be quite as bad for you again as it has been this first year of that terrible, awful tragedy.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because I know you,’ Nellie said, ‘and I have come to know the strength of your character. I’m not saying that you will never miss your parents and that tug of loss will never leave you, but you have survived it and you should be proud of yourself.’