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

And it wasn’t just the soldiers either, for Molly had seen the many ragged and barefoot mothers and children with pinched-in faces, and arms and legs like sticks, skulking around the market. ‘If it weren’t for a quirk of fate and the integrity of Paul Simmons, you and Kevin could easily be like one of those children,’ her father had told her. Molly had shivered at the thought.

‘I bet your employers were glad that Daddy had such a good job,’ she had said to her mother.

Nuala nodded. ‘Yes, they were. Your father was driving by then, because he said Mr Simmons found driving difficult with one leg shorter than the other.’

Molly knew her father loved driving, which he said he had learned to do in the army. Each morning he would cycle over to Mr Simmons’ house, which was in Edgbaston, and drive him to the factory or any other place he wanted to go to in his car. The car her father drove was called a Phantom, which he considered was just about the best car in the world, and made by a firm called Rolls-Royce.

Earlier that day, just after lunch, he had driven it into the street to show them because Mr Simmons had given him leave to fetch his wife home in it. A crowd had gathered on the pavement to see this phenomenon, cars being uncommon then. Kevin had been pop-eyed with excitement.

Ted had winked at him and said, ‘Might give you a ride in it later, mate, if you play your cards right, like. Might give you all a ride if I decide that I like the look of you, for Mr Simmons has given me the rest of the day off.’

Molly shivered in excitement because she would just love that. Ted caught sight of that shiver, grinned at her and said, ‘What d’you think of it, Moll? Ain’t she just the business?’

Molly had to agree that it was indeed a fine car – not that she had ever seen much to compare it with, but she knew that this was really something special. It was long and low, with a large bonnet on the front and painted glossy black with burgundy doors, its large headlamps and even the radiator sparkling like silver in the spring sunshine. Even the tyres were different and painted white on the sides.

Molly noticed her father’s face full of pride as he ran his hand over the body of the car, which he looked after with such meticulous care. ‘You must be a clever man to know how to drive that,’ Molly praised him.

‘Ain’t nothing to driving, Moll,’ Ted said airily. ‘It’s just the other silly buggers on the road that you have to be careful of. And,’ he’d added, waving an admonishing finger at her, though his eyes had sparkled with amusement, ‘when your mother comes home, don’t you be letting on that I said the word “bugger”. God, she would be at my mouth with the carbolic.’

Molly and Kevin laughed at that mental picture and Stan said with an emphatic nod, ‘Aye, she would that.’

Stan was immensely proud of his son, landing such a good job and being in a position to provide properly for his family, but cars scared the life out of him. In his opinion they were dangerous and went far too fast.

‘Thanks for the offer of a ride, son,’ he said to Ted, ‘but I won’t be taking you up on it. I prefer to keep my feet firmly on the ground.’

‘So, you are too windy to come for a spin later?’

‘Aye,’ Stan said calmly, ‘though I would prefer to call it sensible. A tram ride is exciting enough for me.’

Ted shrugged. ‘Well, no one’s forcing you. But the children will appreciate it anyway. And now I must be away to fetch Nuala, for she is desperate to be home again.’

They had all watched until Ted had driven out of sight.

‘He must be a kind man that Paul Simmons,’ Molly said, going back into the house. ‘Fancy Mom coming home in such style.’

‘Aye, fancy,’ Stan said with a grin, lighting up a cigarette. ‘Your father always says he’s generous to a fault.’

‘But Daddy always thinks the best of people,’ Molly said. ‘And he is always so nice and kind himself. Isn’t it strange, Granddad, that Mom’s parents didn’t want her to marry him?’

‘Well, we must assume they didn’t,’ Stan said. ‘They had never met him, of course, because from Nuala writing that first letter, saying they wanted to become engaged, she never heard a word from any of them again.’

‘Mom said it was because she is a Catholic and Daddy a Protestant,’ Molly said.

‘That’s what it must have been, right enough,’ Stan said. ‘But it was so silly because Ted isn’t even a Protestant. I mean, he’s a nothing. Thinks religion is all eyewash, as I do myself. When we came here from Fermanagh, neither Phoebe nor me ever went near either church or chapel again. I sent Ted to Sunday school while he was a lad, like, because if he was to choose later, then he had to know what the options were. When he was about fifteen or sixteen, he said he didn’t want to go any more and that was that. But he would have never stopped your mother practising her religion.

‘She wrote week after week, after the first letter, and never got a reply,’ Stan said. ‘She was all for going over once to see them face to face, but she was nervous. As she said, if her parents wouldn’t even write to her, they wouldn’t be likely to give her much of a welcome and indeed might not let her in through the door at all. Anyway, in the end, she never went.’

‘I don’t blame her.’

‘I don’t either, and Ted said he would abide by her decision, but the silence has just gone on and the family in Donegal, might as well not exist.’

However, none of them in Birmingham was aware that when Nuala’s parents had received the first letter she had sent, her father had died of a heart attack, the letter still clutched in his hand as he toppled from the chair to the stone-flagged floor. Her mother, Biddy, was almost consumed with bitterness against her daughter, whom she felt was responsible for her husband’s death.

She elected to cut Nuala off from the family. Not only did she not write, she also forbade any one else to contact her either and so Nuala knew nothing of the death of her father, whom she had loved so much. Nor did she know that her brother, Joe, unable to stand the atmosphere in the house any more, had taken himself off to America. That only left Tom, the eldest, still on the farm.

‘It’s sad, though,’ Molly said to her granddad. ‘Do you think she still misses her parents – or her brothers, anyway?’

‘I reckon she is used to it by now,’ Stan said. ‘Ted told me that in the beginning she used to talk about them a lot. As the years passed, she would say she often wondered if her brothers had married, and that it was sad for you to maybe have Irish cousins that you would never ever know.’

‘Well, I’m glad Mom didn’t let her parents stop her getting married, anyway,’ Molly had declared stoutly, ‘for me and our Kevin have the nicest and kindest parents anyone could wish for.’

‘Oh I don’t think either of them ever regretted it,’ Stan said. ‘Like me and Phoebe were, they are happy and easy with each other. Your father has been like a lost soul without your mother and now soon she will be here again and everything will be back to normal.’

But the minutes ticked into hours and there was still no sign of the car. Stan sat in the chair and smoked one cigarette after the other, anxiety tugging at him.

He opened his packet of cigarettes again and was surprised to find it empty. ‘Will you pop down to the paper shop and get me ten Park Drive, Moll?’ he said. ‘I must be smoking like a chimney. I’m clean out.’

Molly didn’t want to stir from the house until her parents came through the door, but it wasn’t as if the paper shop was miles away. It was only in Station Road, which Osbourne Road led into, and it would take her no time at all, if she ran. So she said, ‘All right, Granddad’ and took the half a crown, he offered her.

Molly had scarcely left the house when Stan saw a policeman striding up the path, and his stomach gave a lurch. Telling Kevin to stay where he was, he went to the door, his heart as heavy as lead.

The young and very nervous policeman licked his lips before saying, ‘I am looking for a Mr Stanley Maguire.’

‘You’ve found him,’ Stan said, in a voice made husky with apprehension. Policemen didn’t come to anyone’s door to impart good news.

When the policeman said, ‘Could I come inside, sir?’ Stan said, ‘I’d rather not have you in just now. I have my grandson in there and he is only five years old. Perhaps you’d better state your business here.’

The policeman wasn’t used to imparting such news and certainly not on the doorstep, but he could quite see the man’s point of view. He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders and said, ‘I’m afraid, sir, there has been an accident involving a Mr Edward Maguire and a Mrs Nuala Maguire. Your name was among their effects. I believe they are your son and his wife?’

Stan nodded solemnly and let his breath out slowly, while the news seeped into his brain. Hadn’t he feared something like this when they were much later than expected? ‘How are they?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid, sir, the accident was a fatal one.’

Stan couldn’t take that in. ‘Fatal?’ he repeated. ‘You mean they are dead?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Both of them?’

‘I am afraid so. They died instantly, so I believe.’

‘But how … ? I mean, what happened?’

‘They were in collision with a van,’ the policeman said. ‘The doctors think the van driver had a heart attack and died at the wheel and the van then crashed into your son’s car.’

‘Dear Almighty Christ!’ Stan cried. Tears started in his eyes and began to trickle down his wrinkled cheeks.

‘Is there anyone I could call for you, sir?’ the policeman said, worried for the man, who had turned a bad shade of grey.