LITMIR.BIZ

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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.’

      ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Bridie protested.

      ‘It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference whose fault it was,’ Mary said. ‘You know who’ll take the blame for it.’

      Bridie knew only too well. ‘Why d’you think I ran away?’ she said.

      ‘Well,’ Mary demanded again as Bridie continued staring into the fire and made no effort to speak further.

      ‘What d’you mean – well?’

      ‘You know damned well what I mean,’ Mary said impatiently. ‘Who was responsible for putting you in this condition?’

      ‘I’m surprised you even have to ask,’ Bridie said in a flat, dead voice. ‘You know I didn’t exactly have the life of Riley on that farm. I didn’t have great occasion to meet men, let alone let them … well, you know.’

      ‘Then who?’ But even as Mary asked the question, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and an icy tremor run down her spine. A terrible, dreadful thought had just occurred to her, but she could hardly form the words. ‘It wasn’t … Oh dear God, please say it wasn’t Francis?’

      Bridie looked at her, her eyes glistening with tears, her face full of misery and despair as she answered, ‘I’d like to be able to, but I’m afraid it was – my dear, sainted uncle did this to me.’

      Although it was the news Mary had been expecting for Bridie to actually say those words shocked her to the core. ‘Dear Christ!’ she breathed. She covered her face with her hands for a moment and then she said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me it had all started again? By Christ, if you’d just given me a hint of it I’d have come over there and wiped the floor with the man.’

      ‘It wasn’t like that, ‘Bridie protested. ‘Don’t you think if it had begun again, I would have done just that? He’d done nothing, or even said anything the slightly bit wrong for ages. This came out of the blue, the night of the Harvest Dance.’

      Mary was puzzled. ‘But Mammy said you went up to the dance with Rosalyn.’ she said.

      ‘Yes, and Frank was to leave us up, but in the end, he was ill and couldn’t do it, so Francis took us.’

      ‘Mammy said that in her letter,’ Mary said with a nod. ‘I must admit I was surprised when you barely mentioned the dance in your letter, I thought you’d be full of it.’

      ‘I left early,’ Bridie said. ‘I’d just heard about Rosalyn leaving for America and I was upset so I went outside so no one would see me crying. I decided to go for a walk before making for home – the dance was still going on and I didn’t want to go home too early.

      ‘Uncle Francis followed me into that small copse by the hall and he raped me.’ Bridie’s eyes filled with the tears at the memory. ‘After that, I didn’t want to tell anyone of the Harvest Dance, I wanted to forget what happened. Then I missed a period. Mammy noticed, but put it down to my being upset at Rosalyn leaving. After I missed my second period, I started being sick and Mammy was talking of asking the doctor to look me over.’

      ‘Does she suspect?’

      ‘Oh no,’ Bridie said. ‘Such a thought would never occur to her. She thinks I’m working too hard and need a tonic. That’s what I’ve let her believe too in the letter I left.’

      ‘Well, that’s one good thing at any rate,’ Mary said. ‘Now what are we to do?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Bridie said. ‘I thought you’d have some idea.’

      ‘What, Bridie?’ Mary snapped. ‘D’you think I’m some sort of bloody magician?’

      Bridie felt crushed. Her one overriding thought when she realised she was pregnant was of getting to Mary. She’d thought no further than that. Now she realised, with a sense of shock, that the problem still existed: she’d just moved it from Ireland to England. Mary couldn’t work miracles, she had no magic solution, and she was as worried and pain stricken as Bridie.

      ‘Oh God, Mary, help me,’ Bridie pleaded. ‘There is no one else and to nowhere else I can turn. What am I to do?’

      Mary’s heart constricted in pity for her young sister. She’d always had the solutions to Bridie’s problems. Even when Bridie had written about Francis interfering with her, she’d gone over to Ireland and sorted it out. But there was no easy way out of this problem, no get-out clause, and it would do Bridie no good to let her think there was.

      There was only one thing to do, though her mind recoiled from even voicing the thought and when she did, she said it in little more than a whisper. ‘Bridie, have you considered the possibility of getting rid of it?’

      ‘Get rid of it!’ Bridie repeated in shock. ‘Isn’t that illegal?’

      ‘’Course it is,’ Mary said. ‘But I know people who’ve had it done. It can be dangerous though, not something to do unless you understand all the risks involved.’

      ‘It’s a mortal sin,’ Bridie said quietly.

      ‘Aye, there’s that to think about too,’ Mary agreed. ‘We’ll discuss all the options and then decide. All right?’

      Bridie nodded her head and Mary said, ‘We must make our minds up quickly though. If you decide on abortion, we can’t delay. The later you go, the more dangerous it will be.’

      ‘How dangerous is it? What do they do?’ Bridie asked.

      ‘I don’t know,’ Mary admitted. ‘I’ve never been near such a place to know what they do, but I’ve known desperate women who have and, God, you’d have to be desperate to do such a thing. I just know it’s usually better to go to someone you know has done it before successfully.’

      ‘Well, God knows I don’t want to go through with it at all.’

      ‘Aye, I know,’ Mary said. ‘I’d feel the same.’

      ‘But I feel nothing at all for the child,’ Bridie said, almost fiercely. ‘I want nothing and no one belonging to Uncle Francis. That bloody man’s near destroyed my life and that of our parents. I hate him and I’ll go to my grave hating him and I know I’d hate the fruit of his loins too.’

      ‘Don’t

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