Till the Sun Shines Through

Bridie shivered, despite her thick coat. ‘Aye, you’d think they’d wait till spring is really here and the snow had at least disappeared,’ she said. ‘I think God slipped up there.’

Rosalyn gave her a push. ‘Don’t let the priest hear you say that, Bridie McCarthy,’ she said in mock severity while her eyes twinkled. ‘You’ll spend the rest of your life on your knees repenting, you will.’

‘Aye? Well, I’ll say one for you when I’m down there,’ Bridie promised with a smile.

But in all truth there was not much to smile about during those bitterly cold days and the only bright news at all that awful January was that Mary had given birth to a baby and named him Jamie after her father. Jimmy was ridiculously pleased by the gesture and that evening talked of Mary coming home when the baby was a bit older. ‘Show me my namesake,’ he said with a broad grin.

Bridie was glad to see that smile; for far too long her father had had a frown creasing his brow. It was a pity, then, that Terry had to spoil it. ‘Aye, that’s right. Get another one back here that you can chain to the bloody land.’

‘I chain nobody, boy.’

‘Yes you bloody do,’ Terry said, leaping up and reaching for his coat.

‘Where are you going? There’s work to do.’

‘Oh,’ said Terry in mock surprise. ‘You surprise me! Work, is there? Well, get some other silly bugger to do it. I’m away out.’

‘Terry! Come back here!’

As the door slammed shut, Bridie looked fearfully at her father, but he made no effort to follow his wayward son. The peat in the fire settled and hissed and the clock’s tick seemed very loud. Everyone seemed fearful of breaking the silence and Bridie picked up a sock from the mending basket by her mother’s feet and began to darn the large hole in the heel.

By mid-March, the long months of the winter were behind them. The snow and ice were long gone, the lambs had all been born fine and healthy and spring planting was going on apace. The sun was shining in a bright blue sky and Bridie, having celebrated her fourteenth birthday in February, felt happy with her world.

She was, however, rather at a loose end. It was a Saturday and also a Fair Day in the town, where the farmers bought and sold their stock. Terry and her daddy had gone in early with some calves to sell. They’d offered her a lift into town, but she’d said she’d not felt like it that day but then, calling to see Rosalyn, she found she’d also gone into town with her own brother and father very early that morning. ‘She thought you’d be gone in too,’ said Delia.

‘No,’ Bridie said. ‘Daddy offered, but I didn’t fancy it today. Never mind, I’ll see Rosalyn later.’

After helping her mother all morning, she’d been too fidgety to stay in and had gone out tramping the hills later that afternoon. Everyone seemed either to be indoors or in town because she met not a soul and so was pleased on her return to see her uncle Francis approaching her as she neared the outskirts of the farm. She waved to him.

It was as she got nearer that she noticed his strange gait, his slightly glazed eyes and slack mouth, and she realised that her uncle was drunk. She wasn’t totally surprised. He’d been in the town for many hours and the bars, open all day, would be thronged with friends and acquaintances with nothing to do for hours but drink and reminisce. Many men, her father included, would probably be the worse for wear that day.

‘And how’s my favourite girl today?’ Francis cried.

‘Ah, then it must be me you’re talking about since there’s not another soul around for miles,’ Bridie answered with a laugh.

In two strides, Francis was alongside his niece. ‘God, Bridie, but you’re a sight for sore eyes,’ he said. His voice was husky and thick and the way he was looking at her was sending shivers of alarm down her spine. She told herself not to be stupid. This was Francis who she’d known all her life. Dear God! There was no need to be nervous of him. He’d got drunk and was acting oddly, that was all.

‘Hush, Uncle Francis,’ she said in a voice she forced to be steady. ‘You’ll have my head swelling and I’ll not get in the door.’

Francis, his mind addled by the many pints of ale he’d drank that day, was confused. Bridie was his niece and yet he wasn’t seeing her as a niece, but as a desirable young lady and one he’d secretly lusted after for months. It was a fact he’d kept hidden from everyone and the guilt had made him short-tempered with them all at home.

But now here she was, all alone and not a soul about. He grabbed her around the waist and, stunned, she made no protest until he held her against him, his hand clamped against her back. Bridie remembered what Mary had told her about men and women just the previous summer and when she felt the hardness of her uncle she knew what it was that he was pressing against her. She was suddenly aware of every bit of him and she started to wriggle and protest.

Francis’s thick lips descended on Bridie’s, holding her so tight she was unable to get away. When she felt her uncle’s hand trailing up her leg, she was filled with panic. Lifting her foot, she stamped on his toes with all her might and Francis, taken unawares, slackened his hold slightly and she was able to twist out of his grasp. She stood facing him, her eyes sparkling with anger, and her chest heaving. ‘What d’you think you’re doing, Uncle Francis?’

Francis was angry with himself. What had compelled him to grab Bridie like that? He’d fought the attraction this long while and now … now, to give in like this. But it would never do for her, for anyone, to guess his thoughts and so he answered angrily:

‘What d’you mean, what am I doing? You could see what I was doing, giving you a kiss and cuddle, as I’ve done since you were a child. There was no need to make such a fuss and near lame me in the process.’

Doubts began to creep into Bridie’s mind. Had she read too much into what Francis had done? True, the kiss was one he’d never given her before and she hadn’t liked it much, but that could have been because he was drunk. It could all have been down to the drink. Maybe she’d exaggerated the whole thing. She must have done, she told herself, for her uncle Francis would never hurt her, she was sure of that.

She felt rather silly as she said softly, ‘I’m sorry, Uncle Francis. I didn’t mean to offend you.’

‘Yes, well, we’ll say no more about it,’ Francis said. ‘I might have surprised you a wee bit and I’ve been drinking all day.’

Relief flooded through Bridie. That was it then. She’d been foolish. ‘You’ll not tell them at home, sure you won’t?’ she asked her uncle.

‘Not a bit of it,’ Francis replied. ‘Don’t fresh yourself. This will be just between us two.’

But for all Bridie’s relief, she tried to make sure after that that she was never alone with her uncle, especially when he’d taken a drink, for she saw his eyes on her, sometimes in a most disturbing way. She never tramped the hills again either and, on Fair Days, she either stayed around the farmhouse with her mother, or went into the town with her father and stuck like glue to Rosalyn.

She finished school in June and Sarah told her to have a wee holiday before looking for a job. Bridie hadn’t forgotten Terry’s threat, but it had been so long now with never a word that she’d pushed it to the back of her mind. She told herself it might be years before Terry was able to go to America.

She really wanted a job in the shirt factory in town beside Rosalyn, but she knew if Terry did leave, a job off the farm would be out of the question. It was too big for her father to manage on his own and she’d be the only one of the family left then. She’d have to stay and help him. Because she was the youngest and so small, she’d been protected from much of the work. Now, she faced the fact that if she was to be of any help to her father and not a hindrance altogether, she would have to learn, and fast, for farms carried few passengers.

She began to tail Terry as he went about his jobs and Terry, admiring her guts and determination, took time to teach her, even though he worried that some of the work might be too much for her.

‘Talk Daddy into getting someone in to help once I’ve gone,’ he told her one day. ‘I’m going to tell him you can’t manage because I don’t really think you’ll be able to do all I do. And for God’s sake, if you’re determined to take on the farm, stick out for a proper wage. It’s only fair and it’s important to have money in your pocket.’

Bridie knew all Terry said was true, but she couldn’t see her daddy hiring help. It went against his principles of it being a family farm. Maybe she’d grow a wee bit more yet before Terry was ready to leave and there was always Frank within calling distance. She was sure he’d give her a hand if she needed it. Rosalyn always said he had a soft spot for her. The point about a wage, however, was a good one. One reason for getting a job, as well as helping the family out, was to have money to spend as she wished.

One day in late July, when the warm sun shone in a sky of Wedgewood blue, Terry was working in the fields when he saw the postman, Abel Maloney, turn in the lane. It wasn’t that unusual, so Terry took little notice, until Abel hailed him. Almost every week, Abel carried letters to the McCarthy house from their sons in America and he knew their writing well, so he said to Terry, ‘Your brothers are after writing to you now too.’

Terry stared at the man for a second or two before the significance of what he said caused him to throw down his spade, leap the hedge and take the letter from his outstretched hand. He went to the privy – the only place he could think of where he wouldn’t be disturbed – and ripped the envelope open.

Dollar bills were folded inside the letter and Terry stuffed those into the pockets of his breeches and smoothed out the sheet of paper.

Okay kiddo,

I just might have a job for you at last. The factory are setting up new lines making waterproof mackintoshes and they’ll be up and running in three weeks or so. I’ll put your name forward, but there would be hundreds after each vacancy, so there is no way I can hold it for you and there will be a damned long wait for anything else if you let this one go. I presume you have primed Mammy and Daddy what you intended to do when the time was right so I advise you to waste no time in buying a ticket and getting your arse over here pronto. See you soon hopefully.

All the best

Johnnie

Excitement leapt inside Terry initially and then reality struck. It was about the very worst time to leave the farm with not even the hay gathered in. But then was there ever a good time to leave a farm? And as Johnnie said, if he passed this offer up, then he might as well say goodbye to his dreams of going to America altogether. Johnnie thought he must have discussed the possibility of him joining his brothers with their parents, but though they’d both sensed his dissatisfaction, the idea that he might leave the farm had never occurred to them and Terry wished now he’d given some hint of it. Well, he thought, that can soon be remedied. The sooner he told them the better for speed was of the essence, so he squared his shoulders and made his way to the farmhouse.

The resultant row was so fast and furious that Bridie fled to the bedroom and buried her head beneath the bedclothes. Sarah pleaded and cried and Jimmy thundered and roared while Terry shouted back. Francis and Delia were brought in to try to talk some sense into the boy and the following day Father O’Dwyer was called.

By then, Terry was barely speaking to his parents, but his determination to leave had not been altered at all though everyone had thought and said he was wrong, ungrateful, neglecting his filial duty. His parents, their farm and their welfare were, they said, his responsibility. Who was to help them now if he ran away like this? Surely to God he couldn’t expect his wee sister to take up the reins?

Bridie tried to keep out of it. She wanted no one to see the tears she shed, for it would be just another stick to beat Terry with. She knew she’d miss him more than anyone – it had been just the two of them for so long and she knew she’d be lonely. It wouldn’t have mattered so much if she’d been going into town to work; then there would have been Rosalyn and other girls to talk to through the day, but she knew it would be the loneliness as well as the workload that might wear her down now.

‘Do you hate me, Bridie?’ Terry asked, coming across her in the barn in tears. He’d fought all the people that opposed him and pleaded with him and yet it was Bridie, who had said so little, who played on his mind.

Bridie raised her face, her eyes red and swollen from crying. She knew Terry had his ticket and would be leaving in the next few days and she wanted to bang her little fists on his chest and tell him he couldn’t go. What was he thinking of to leave her like this?

But how could she let her brother go with only recriminations ringing in his ears? ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t hate you, but I’m sad – I’ll miss you.’