Читать книгу A Sister’s Promise - Anne Bennett - Страница 8

Stan was astounded at the numbers who attended the funeral of Ted and Nuala on 26 April. Paul Simmons had helped him make all the arrangements and had insisted on paying for everything. He had closed the factory as a mark of respect, but even so, Stan was amazed by those from the workforce who attended. Ted, Paul said, was very well thought of by everyone who met him, and many of the men who’d shaken Stan by the hand and commiserated with him on his loss said similar things. So also, it seemed, was Nuala liked and the pews were packed with neighbours and special friends of hers, mothers she met at the school gates, and those from the Mothers’ Union she used to attend regularly. Many were in tears.

Added to this, all of Paul’s family came too – his father and mother, and two sisters and their husbands, all of whom still remembered what they had owed to Ted. They seemed genuinely shocked by his death and that of his young wife. Not that it was spoken of openly and certainly not in front of the children, who had both insisted on attending.

Molly had remained dry-eyed, her distress and sense of loss too deep for tears, though she held on to Kevin’s hand to take comfort from the child as well as to give it, as the tears dribbled down his cheeks ceaselessly.

As they stood at the graveside, they were warmed by the bright sun shining down from a sky of Wedgwood blue, and somehow this made the tragic deaths even more poignant. As the clods of earth fell with dull thuds on the coffins they seemed to reverberate in Molly’s brain. Dead! Dead! Dead! Kevin’s sobs became more audible and Biddy moved towards the child purposefully, but he pushed her away and turned instead to his grandfather. Stan held the little boy’s shuddering body tight. He didn’t urge him to stop crying either thinking he had a good enough reason to break his heart.

He envied him in a way because he would have liked the opportunity to go home now and lock the door and cry his eyes out. Instead, he knew he had to lead the mourners to the room at the back of the Lyndhurst pub which Paul Simmons had booked, and make small talk with the people who had come to pay their respects.

When he’d first been discussing the funeral arrangements with Mr Simmons, Stan, who had thought the mourners would only amount to a handful, said he intended to invite them back to the house. Mr Simmons had said he thought a room at a pub might be better and Stan, not up to arguing and certainly not with a toff, had agreed reluctantly.

He had thought though the few people he had anticipated coming would look silly and maybe feel out of place, but it wasn’t that way at all. He looked at the crush of people around him in the room the pub had allocated them and was glad he had agreed. Kevin still held tight to his hand as Father Clayton, who had said the Requiem Mass, approached them.

Father Clayton liked Stan, with whom he was not above sparring and joking, as he had liked Ted, and thought them fine men. He couldn’t understand for the life of him why they hadn’t turned Catholic and embraced the one true faith.

That day though, Kevin’s large brown eyes still swam with tears as he turned them on the priest and demanded, ‘What did God want with my mammy and daddy?’

Father Clayton didn’t have an answer that would satisfy the child. ‘We don’t understand the ways of God, Kevin.’

‘Not even you?’

‘Not even me.’

‘Well, then,’ Kevin said. ‘What’s the point of it all? That means that God can go round doing what He likes and you just say we can’t understand and that.’ He stamped his foot suddenly and cried in a high voice full of hurt and confusion, ‘I want to know. I think we needed Mammy and Daddy much more than He did.’

‘Kevin!’ The name was said like a pistol shot.

Kevin jumped and his eyes were full of foreboding as he watched his grandmother approach. ‘Now you see the level of my concern that I explained to you this morning when I called in to introduce myself and arrange an appointment?’ Biddy complained to Father Clayton. ‘The child has not even been taught how to address a priest correctly, and as for questioning the ways of our Good Lord, well, words fail me totally.’

Before the priest had time to reply, Stan burst in, ‘I think Kevin has a perfect right to ask what manner of God it was at all who allowed his parents to be taken away, and who else to ask but the priest? So you just leave him alone.’ He turned to Father Clayton and went on before Biddy could speak, ‘We’re taught that God loves us, aren’t we? Well, He sure as hell didn’t show much love to poor Nuala and Ted. That’s how I feel and so I know exactly what young Kevin means.’

So did Father Clayton, and he was glad he had been the one assigned to take the Mass and not Father Monahon, for he would have torn the child to ribbons if he had been silly enough to say those things in front of him. As for Stan, a non-Catholic, Father Monahon would have a total lack of understanding for his pain. To Father Monahon, Catholicism and the pursuit of it was all that mattered. He was like the maternal grandmother, just recently arrived from Ireland, no doubt a devout and ardent Catholic, but not a woman he could take to at all. Father Clayton turned to her now as she burst out, ‘D’you hear that, Father? Blasphemy, and before the child too. As if I could leave a child in a home where such views are felt and, even worse, expressed. The sooner I get them both to Ireland the better I’ll like it.’

‘Come now …’ the priest began soothingly.

He got no further, for what the women had said had penetrated Kevin’s brain. He had been shocked into silence when she had shouted at him, but now he said, ‘What do you mean about going to Ireland?’

‘Just what I say,’ Biddy almost hissed. ‘You and your sister are coming to live with me.’

‘Oh no I’m not! I ain’t,’ Kevin cried desperately. ‘I’m staying with my granddad, I am. Aren’t I, Granddad?’ He appealed as Stan stayed silent. ‘Tell her, Granddad. Go on, tell her.’

‘Ah, yes, tell me?’ Biddy mocked.

‘Have you no shame?’ Stan demanded of her coldly. ‘We have just buried the child’s parents. You might be holier than I am, but there isn’t a kind bone in your body.’

‘But it ain’t true, is it?’ Kevin cried. At the grave expression on his granddad’s face, he felt suddenly cold, afraid and lonely as he insisted, ‘Say it ain’t true, Granddad. Tell her.’

‘May your God forgive you,’ Stan said, picking Kevin up in his arms, ‘for I will struggle to do so.’

Father Clayton watched Stan stride across the room and knew he was going to go somewhere quiet and explain to the child that his suffering was far from over yet. That now he had to go to some alien place with a woman he was so obviously scared of and live there until he was adult and could choose for himself. And tell him too there wasn’t a damned thing either of them could do about it. The priest felt suddenly terribly dispirited and heavy, as if his body was filled with lead.

‘They’re both wilful, those children,’ Biddy said fiercely. ‘Too fond of getting their own way and totally disrespectful.’

‘You don’t think it’s just that they are both still in shock and missing their parents, and maybe a little afraid of the future?’ the priest put in mildly.

‘I don’t go along with all this psychological claptrap,’ Biddy said. ‘Their parents are dead and gone, and that’s that, and it is obvious they will have to live with me. I am putting myself out too, you know? Do you think I want to start rearing children at my time of life?’

‘Then why do it?’ The words were out before the priest could stop them.

Biddy stared at him coldly. ‘I would have thought you of all people would not have to ask that question,’ she said, ‘I know my duty and do not approve of my grandchildren being brought up with a heathen.’

‘Stan Maguire is no heathen,’ Father Clayton said quite heatedly because the woman was annoying him greatly.

‘I don’t see how you can say that so categorically when the man worships nowhere and neither did his son,’ Biddy said. ‘As far as I am concerned that makes him a heathen and I do not want my grandchildren brought up by one such as him. I am surprised that you are not similarly concerned. I think I need to talk to your superior about this and I fully intend to do that.’

Father Clayton knew that Father Monahon would see things exactly as she did, and when she complained about his attitude, as he knew she would, he would be hauled over the coals himself. That in itself wouldn’t matter if anything had been achieved by his interference, but he knew it hadn’t. He sighed. Sometimes he found it difficult to follow the Church’s teaching in blind obedience as they were taught they had to, for he often found issues were not so black and white. He couldn’t help wishing that, regardless of Stan’s religion, or lack of it, the children could be left with the grandfather they loved.

Molly had watched the altercation and knew by her grandfather’s determined strides across the room with Kevin in his arms that he was hopping mad about something and the same something was making her brother cry. She sighed as she followed them, for she didn’t have to be a genius to guess what it was all about.

On the way in, Stan had noticed a couple of chairs set against the wall in the foyer and he sat down in one of these and set about telling Kevin what was going to happen to him and Molly, and why, despite his promise to them, he would be unable to fight against it.

That is where Molly found them and her heart constricted in pity for her distressed little brother, who was weak from weeping.

He turned anguished eyes towards her and said in a voice almost broken with sadness and disbelief, ‘Molly … has our g-granddad told you wh-where we’ve got to go and – live?’

Molly nodded, and kneeled down beside Kevin and held his agitated hand between hers. Her heart hammered in her chest, her mouth was very dry and she felt the familiar lump in her throat, and willed herself not to cry.

‘But … don’t want t-to live with her,’ Kevin said. ‘Sh-she’s horrible. I want to … stay with G-Granddad.’

‘So do I,’ Molly said fiercely. ‘I hate her as much as you do, but I am not afraid of her and you needn’t worry, because I will look after you, fight for you if I have to.’

Kevin looked at the sister who had always looked out for him before and said, ‘Promise?’ He didn’t know if he believed in the power of a promise any more. Hadn’t his granddad promised? But it was all he had.

Molly said without any hesitation at all, ‘I promise, Kevin. I swear it on the Bible.’

‘Ah, Molly,’ Kevin said, and he leaned towards her with a sigh and she put her arms around him. As Stan’s arms encircled both children he felt a sharp pain in his chest. So, he thought, this is what it feels like when a person’s heart is broken in two.

After the funeral was over, Biddy made her way to the presbytery and Father Monahon who had been expecting her. He listened to her proposals to take the children to Ireland and fully approved. In fact, he couldn’t see any viable alternative. In his opinion the sooner the children were removed from the clutches of their grandfather the better. Their immortal souls were at stake.

‘I’m gratified that you feel the same as I do,’ Biddy said. ‘At my time of life it is not easy to tie myself down with the worry and burden of raising children again, but I know where my duty lies. I must say, I was surprised that your curate didn’t share your view on this matter,’ she went on as Father Clayton entered the room.

Father Monahon’s cold eyes slid over to the younger priest as he asked testily, ‘Is this true?’

‘In a way,’ Father Clayton admitted. ‘Mrs Sullivan has just said she would find it difficult raising the children. Added to that, they seem so happy with Stan. They have both just lost their parents and are naturally distraught over it. I thought perhaps taking them away from everything that was familiar …’

‘You thought,’ Father Monahon mimicked mockingly. ‘That’s your trouble, you think too much. As a priest, you don’t have to think, but you do have to obey the teachings of the Church. It might be good for the children to get away from memories and get some healthy living and country air into their lungs, but that is neither here nor there. If they are upset, that is the very time when they would need the comfort and support of the one true church and a loving grandmother to bring them up correctly.’

Father Clayton knew there wasn’t a loving bone in Biddy Sullivan’s body and he knew too that wouldn’t matter a jot as far as Father Monahon was concerned. If she lashed the children mercilessly, verbally, physically or both, she would still be considered a fine woman in his superior’s book, if she saw to it that they attended Mass and the sacraments.

Father Monahon shook hands with Biddy and said, ‘I would suggest that you see the authorities as quickly as possible and set all this in motion. Rest assured, you will have my full support.’

Father Clayton said not a word. There was nothing left to say.

That night, Kevin had a horrific nightmare. As he was sharing his granddad’s bed so that a room could be given up to Biddy, Stan was quick to comfort and reassure, but long after his granddad had fallen asleep again, Kevin had lain wide-eyed, for though he ached with tiredness and his eyes smarted from lack of sleep, he was afraid of closing them.

Next morning, Kevin was listless his face was as white as a sheet, his eyes were red-rimmed. But Biddy didn’t believe in children having a lie-in. There was no time to lay about on a farm and the sooner they got to grips with that the better. Biddy had a host of jobs she wanted Molly to do and she listed these at the breakfast table. As well as the shopping and cooking, Biddy wanted her to tackle the family wash and then clean the house from top to bottom.

Molly said nothing, though she looked across the table to her grandfather and saw him purse his lips. He hated the thought of his granddaughter working so hard all day. The child was no slouch anyway and had been tremendous with her mother so ill in hospital, taking on a lot of the housework and cooking. Both he and his son had given the child a hand. And then, of course, there was always Hilda, who had showed what a true friend she was.

Biddy, however, had taken an instant dislike to Hilda and told her firmly that her help was no longer required, not that she intended to fill this gap herself. She did nothing but carp and complain and find fault with everything and everybody. Often Stan found it hard to believe that this objectionable woman was the mother of the lovely Nuala.

So though he wanted to complain about this, he knew his authority, as far as the children were concerned, was of no account, and so he said nothing. He had an appointment with the landlord that morning to tell the man of his changed circumstances. As soon as the children left with Biddy he would be returning to his own little house.

Stan was in the bedroom getting ready when Kevin sidled in. ‘Can I come with you, Granddad?’ he asked. ‘I’ll be good. I’ll wait in the corridor for you. Please don’t leave me behind.’

Stan looked at the child’s white and frightened face and wished he could take him, but he knew for his own sake he had to get used to Biddy and so he said, ‘No, it’s better if you stop here. I’ll likely not be long.’

‘Please, Granddad?’

The expression on Kevin’s face tore at Stan’s heart, but he knew he wouldn’t be part of the child’s world for much longer and so he bent to his level and said, ‘Kevin, you know what I explained to you the day of the funeral? Maybe you should try to get to know Biddy. I know the woman is not easy, but it would likely help you if you could get along together.’

‘I don’t like her, Granddad and I’m scared of her too.’

‘I know that, Kevin,’ Stan said sadly. ‘All I’m saying is perhaps you need to try a little harder and maybe she will be better if I am not around.’

Stan didn’t believe that for a minute and neither did Kevin, but there was no help for it. Once his grandfather had left, Kevin wanted to hide away in the bedroom, but Biddy found him there, hauled him out and set him to cleaning the family’s shoes.

For some time the only sound in the house was Biddy’s nagging voice. Kevin envied Molly escaping it when she went out with a list to do the shopping.

Molly was finding the day long and arduous, and not the work alone, but coping with all the complaints, however hard she tried.

By the time she carried the shopping back she was feeling weary, for she had already stripped the sheets off the beds, remade them and left the soiled linen in the boiler while she washed, rinsed, mangled and hung out the rest of the washing. Then she was sent out to do the shopping and knew after that she would have to tackle all the sheets and clean the house, for Biddy did nothing.

Biddy noticed how jaded Molly looked as she hauled the heavy bags into the house and was pleased. She would soon show the child who was the boss in this house.

‘This is a rest cure compared with what you will be doing when I get you to my place,’ Biddy told her. ‘There, as well as housework, you will be expected to help on the farm. Your mother was never expected to do any of this and look where that got me. The Devil makes work for idle hands, people say, so you will not be allowed to be idle at any time, let me tell you. I have learned the error of my ways and you will not go the way of your mother.’

Molly was incensed by the disparaging way that Biddy spoke of the mother she had loved with a passion. She faced her grandmother and said, ‘I would be pleased and proud to be like my mother. Don’t you dare say bad things about her! She was a lovely person and much nicer and kinder than you.’

The slap across Molly’s cheek was so hefty she was nearly lifted from her feet. She made no sound, though her hand flew to her cheek where she knew a large bruise would shortly form, and running her tongue around her mouth she knew her bottom lip was split. Yet she refused to show fear and she looked at her grandmother in defiance with her head held high.

‘By God, girl when I get you home I will knock that spirit out of you,’ Biddy almost snarled. ‘I have a bamboo cane that I used to chastise the boys and you will feel the sting of it a time or two, I’m thinking.’

Molly saw Kevin looking at her, his eyes alive with panic and his fear so great his teeth began to chatter. She knew that for his sake, as well as her own, she had to stand up to this woman and so, though her insides crawled with apprehension, she cried, ‘I don’t care a jot for you or your stupid cane. We will get along well enough if you stop saying bad things about my mother for there aren’t any bad things that you can say. She was wonderful and so was my father, and you can bully me all you like, but you will never be able to make me say anything different.’

‘I’ll put manners on you, miss, if it is the last thing I do.’

‘There is nothing wrong with my manners,’ Molly contradicted. ‘It is you who is being rude, not me.’

Biddy, furious at being spoken to in such a way, and because Molly was displaying no fear of her, administered a punch of such ferocity that it caused Molly to sink to her knees. She couldn’t prevent a cry escaping from her nor the tears spurting from her eyes. Her whole face throbbed and she knew that her nose was pouring blood. She had the acrid taste of it in her mouth.

Kevin had given a scream at the punch and thrown himself against Molly. He remembered her saying she would protect him against his grandmother and realised suddenly the woman was stronger than both of them and the only weapon they had was to stick together. And so, despite his intense fear, he glared up at Biddy and yelled, ‘Leave her alone you. Molly is right. You are nothing but a big bully.’

Biddy’s face was red and contorted with temper as she said with disdain. ‘And you are an insolent young pup who will get some of the same before he is much older.’

Molly put her arms around Kevin and said, ‘Don’t you dare lay a finger on him.’

‘And who is to stop me?’ Biddy asked. ‘You?’

‘I’m telling my granddad about you,’ Kevin cried.

‘Go ahead,’ Biddy said. ‘But remember that there will be no granddad in Ireland.’

And of course that was true. They would have no one to fight their battles for them there and both children were well aware of it.

So when Biddy said, ‘And now, if that little tantrum is over I suggest you get that shopping put away and cook some lunch, for my stomach thinks my throat is cut,’ Molly got to her feet, stanching the flow of blood from her nose with a handkerchief, because there was nothing else she could do.

They had scrambled eggs on toast because it was what Biddy wanted and Kevin looked at it with distaste. He had never liked his eggs scrambled and when he began to move them around his plate with his fork, Biddy snapped, ‘Eat it!’

Kevin was filled with trepidation as he mumbled that he didn’t like scrambled eggs.

‘Don’t mumble like that. Speak up!’

Kevin shot a look at his sister and she spoke for him, her voice sounding strange with her thick lips, ‘Kevin isn’t that keen on scrambled eggs.’

‘What is this, “not keen” about?’ Biddy snapped. ‘From what I have seen since I have been here, he is not keen on a lot of things, for he eats nothing. I’ll not stand such nonsense,’ she said, glaring at Kevin. ‘It’s good food. Eat it, or I will make you eat it.’

Kevin looked at his plate and just the look of the eggs made him feel sick. ‘I can’t.’

‘Oh, yes you can,’ Biddy said, leaping from her chair. She pinned Kevin’s arms down, holding his nose at one and the same time while she pushed a huge forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth when he opened it to breathe.

Kevin kicked and struggled and cried, and Molly was pulling at her grandmother and shouting at her to leave Kevin alone, but it made no difference and Kevin was forced to swallow the egg. The minute he did, this was followed by another forkful and then another.

Suddenly, Kevin felt the nausea rising in his throat but he couldn’t speak for another forkful of egg was in his mouth and he tried manfully to swallow. However, he couldn’t, and he began to cough and choke and splutter, and then suddenly vomited with ferocity over the table, the floor and his grandmother.

‘You bold wee boy,’ she shrieked and, scooping him up from his chair, she laid him across her knee.

Stan came in then and took in the scene at a glance. The hateful woman paddling Kevin’s bottom with her large hands and Molly trying to prevent her. It didn’t need a genius to work out what had happened to Molly’s face either. Stan felt unaccustomed rage build inside him as he yanked Kevin out of Biddy’s grasp.

‘You have no right!’ she said angrily. ‘The children are my responsibility and I was chastising the child.’

‘Like you chastised Molly?’ Stan said with scorn. ‘Look at the state of that poor girl’s face. Come here, Mol.’

Molly crossed to her granddad’s side and he put his arm around her shoulder. Glaring at Biddy he said, ‘There is to be no more of this chastising as you call it. Personally, I call it beating a child and that will not happen while they are under my roof. The children have already suffered enough and you are not to lay one hand on them.’

But Kevin, his arms around his grandfather’s neck, still shaking and giving gulping little sobs, knew that it would only be a brief respite and his bleak eyes met Molly’s and he knew that she was well aware of this too.

The next day, Kevin stuck like glue to his grandfather and the old man knowing of his fear never left him alone with Biddy and they kept out of the house as much as possible. He could do nothing about Molly for again she was kept hard at it. She told him she didn’t want to go out anyway because she would be embarrassed with her face the way it was. The marks of Biddy’s handiwork were clearly visible, though the woman seemed not a bit ashamed of what she had done. Molly, however, wanted as few people to catch sight of her as possible and so she had risen early and gone to the half-past seven Mass. It was never well attended, that Sunday was no exception, and she had kept her head bowed throughout most of the service. She fervently hoped that the marks would be gone by the morning because she wanted to return to school. She badly needed to get away from her grandmother.

Despite his grandfather never leaving him alone with Biddy on Sunday, Kevin was in an almost permanent state of anxiety. He had another horrific nightmare that night that raised the house. The next morning, Stan looked at his grandson’s thin and wan face and rheumy eyes, ‘Kevin, you stay home from school today. You look far from well and I would like the doctor to take a look at you.’

‘Kevin cannot stay at home today,’ Biddy said. ‘You forget that I am in charge now of the children and I will not tolerate laggards. There is nothing wrong with the child at all. He is seeking attention that is all, because you have utterly ruined him. As for the screaming and all last night, that was probably the reaction to something he ate.’ Molly knew that wasn’t it, because Kevin was eating practically nothing. In fact, she realised with a jolt, it had been some time since he had eaten anything properly. He had had no breakfast that morning either. She decided to tackle him about eating more when they were on their way to school and away from their grandmother hearing any of it.