A Sister's Promise (14 page)

Of course, harvesting the crops meant she had been out of the house for days, working alongside her uncle a lot of the time. She knew without doubt that she would far rather be out in the fields with him, however arduous the work, than anywhere at all with her grandmother.

Just before the winter really set in, Tom brought quicklime back from the lime kiln one day, and he and Molly cleared out the well together, and lined the inside with the quicklime, which they had mixed with water, before allowing the well to fill up again. The quicklime was also used to make the whitewash for the outside of the cottage, and Molly found she liked doing that. Tom also checked that any poor thatch was replaced to keep the place weatherproof, but though Molly had climbed on to the roof with him, she was no good at the thatching itself – all fingers and thumbs, as her uncle said.

As the autumn rolled on, Molly realised how much she was dreading this first Christmas without her parents and guessed that there would be little festive cheer in that house of misery. She was right, for Christmas at the Sullivan house was almost a nonevent. No streamers festooned the house in the run-up to Christmas, there was no tree, no wooden Nativity scene decorating the mantelshelf and no cards at all.

Molly tried to push down the memories of the many Christmas days she had enjoyed at home, but she couldn’t help thinking nostalgically about them. She cried herself to sleep on Christmas Eve, feeling her loss especially poignantly, and yearning so much to be with those still left to her in Birmingham that it seemed to spread all over her body, making her nerve ends tingle and ache.

Tom listened to the anguished sobbing of the young girl,
frustrated that he was so helpless to deal with such pain and sorrow, and hoped to God his mother wasn’t roused. He was so disturbed that he lay with his eyes smarting with tiredness, long after Molly was eventually quiet.

Molly woke heavy-eyed and sluggish, and dragged herself from the bed into the cold black early morning, pulling on her dungarees, for even on Christmas Day cows have to be milked. She went into the room to rake up the fire and put on the kettle. While she was doing that, Tom stopped beside her at the hearth, on his way to the cowshed.

He was pleased that his mother’s even breathing behind the bed canopy indicated that she was still asleep as he almost whispered, ‘Happy Christmas, Molly,’ and pressed a parcel into her hands.

Molly had expected no present, so she was stunned when she opened the packaging to find gloves, a scarf and a jaunty tam-o’-shanter, all of the softest wool in a myriad pastel colours. She was almost too overcome to speak, though she gasped in delight, and Tom saw her moist eyes and knew just how pleased she was. He was glad that he had asked Nellie’s advice.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Molly said eventually. ‘You have taken me so much by surprise and you couldn’t have got anything better. My hands have been like blocks of ice some days, so thank you, Uncle Tom. Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how this has pleased me.’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed her uncle’s cheek, and he flushed bright pink with embarrassment.

‘’S all right,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ve given the gift to you now so that you can wear them to Mass if you have a mind.’

‘Oh, I have a mind all right,’ Molly said. ‘I would be proud and pleased to wear them.’

Biddy, of course, tried to spoil it all, and laughed at Tom for what she called his stupidity. She wasn’t even mollified with the shawl he had bought her, but Molly refused to let Biddy’s sourness spoil her pleasure, and the people going
into Mass that morning more than made up for it anyway. Nellie was so pleased the things suited her and Jack told her she was as pretty as a picture.

She so wished she could go home with the McEvoys after Mass, but it was no good wishing for things she couldn’t have, and she knew that as well as anyone. At least, she told herself as they made their way home, they had decent food in the house for a change, for Biddy had wrung the neck of a hen that was no longer laying the day before and Molly had drawn the innards from it and it was now ready to be cooked.

Molly hated preparing the hens to eat. In Birmingham they had bought them from the butcher ready just to put in the oven. The very first time Biddy had made Molly draw out the bird’s innards the sight and smell had caused her to be sick in the gutter in the yard afterwards, and Biddy had laughed at her. She couldn’t help feeling nauseous every time, but she would never allow herself to be sick again and give Biddy any reason to gloat over her.

Despite the food, though, the day was as gloomy as Molly thought it would be, and though she did go for a tramp with her uncle and later played cards with him, she was glad when the day was over and she could look forward to seeing Cathy and her parents the following day.

The next day, though, she wasn’t sure she would be allowed to go, for her grandmother kicked up shockingly. A tantrum of such magnitude used to terrify Tom to the extent he would give in to anything she wanted, and he felt his innards quail at the vitriol pouring from her mouth. Even Molly was unnerved.

And then Biddy’s temper got the better of her and she lashed out at Molly. The first punch causing her nose to spurt blood and the second, administered before Tom could get to her, split her lip. Anger replaced the fear coursing through Tom’s vein and he helped Molly to her feet because the power of the second punch had knocked her over.

He said to his mother through gritted teeth. ‘You have cooked your goose right and proper now. Why in God’s name would anyone want to stay with someone like you one minute longer than was necessary? And I’m warning you, Mammy, if you can’t keep your hands to yourself, you’d better watch out I don’t do the same to you one of these days.’

‘How dare you?’ Biddy shrieked. ‘Let me tell you—’

‘No,’ Tom said firmly. ‘I don’t want to hear it. I am off for more congenial company and so is Molly, and we will see you later.’

Both Nellie and Jack McEvoy looked askance at Molly’s face when she arrived at their door, but didn’t ask any questions. Cathy, on the other hand, barely waited until they were in her bedroom, before she said, ‘Your face is a right mess. What happened to it?’

Molly felt she owed Biddy no loyalty so she said, ‘My grandmother wasn’t that keen on me coming here today.’

‘So, she did that to you?’

‘That’s right.’

Cathy was shocked to the core. ‘That’s awful.’

‘I agree,’ Molly said. ‘In fact, I think it is so awful that I don’t want to think about it any more, never mind talk about it.’

Cathy knew she was right. What was the point of going on and on about something dreadful that she had no power of changing? So she said, ‘Let’s talk about Christmas instead, because it is my favourite time in the whole year.’

‘It used to be mine too.’

‘Sorry,’ Cathy said, wincing at her tactlessness. ‘That was stupid of me.’

‘It’s all right, really,’ Molly said. ‘Though I must admit, I have missed my parents very much this year.’

‘You were bound to,’ Cathy said gently. ‘I bet your grandfather sent you a card, though, and your brother.’

Molly stared at Cathy. ‘I thought you knew, that your mother might have said or something.’

‘What about?’

‘No one from Birmingham is allowed to write to me.’

‘Why on earth not?’

‘Because my grandmother considers them heathens.’

‘That’s rubbish!’ Cathy said. ‘Anyway, she can’t stop them.’

‘She can, you know, and she does,’ Molly said. ‘I don’t have a penny piece of my own, for a start. My granddad thought of that and gave me a writing pad and envelopes and some Irish stamps, and I wrote to him and Hilda just the once. Uncle Tom posted the letters in Buncrana. I never thought of asking permission – didn’t think I would need it – but my grandmother went mad when she knew. Replies would have come for me, I know that, but I never saw them. She confiscated all the stuff my grandfather gave me and wrote and told them not to write to me again, that she was severing all communication between us.’

‘That is perfectly dreadful,’ said Cathy, distressed.

‘I thought your mother might have told you,’ Molly said.

Cathy shook her head. ‘Mammy never talks of things like that,’ she said. ‘She said it isn’t nice to bandy gossip about, and particularly because she does know, or could probably guess, a lot of what goes on in people’s lives because of the job she does and things people say when they confide in her. She can keep things pretty close to her chest, can my mother when she wants to.’

‘Would she tell me things if I asked her directly?’ Molly asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Cathy said. ‘But personally I think you have a right to know if letters came for you and you never got them. We’ll be having dinner soon and we’ll bring it up at the table.’

Cathy did bring it up and Nellie looked decidedly uncomfortable. She knew of the letters that had come for Molly as she knew of the missive Biddy had sent banning them,
though at first, despite that, the letters came thick and fast. She hadn’t thought to mention any of this to her daughter, though as she watched the friendship develop between them, she had thought the day might come when she would have to explain herself. So when she was asked so directly she said to Molly, ‘There were letters that came for you, at first anyway, but your grandmother obviously thought that it was better you didn’t see them.’

Nellie looked into Molly’s eyes, so sad they were like pools of pain in that battered face, and her stomach contracted in pity for the young girl.

‘I don’t know if you were aware of the letter Biddy sent, banning all communication, Molly. I only know myself because she told me. I thought it was the wrong thing to do then and I told her so, and I haven’t changed my opinion. Anyway, those in Birmingham took no notice at first either because for a time the letters continued to come.’

Cathy was perplexed. She looked at her friend and recognised her suffering as she burst out, ‘But why did you give them to the postman, Mammy, knowing that Molly wasn’t going to be allowed to receive them?’

‘I didn’t know that absolutely at first,’ Nellie protested. ‘It was only when Molly never mentioned anything about them that I had my suspicions. After that, every time I put the letters for you in the sack, my heart would sink. It was almost a relief when they eventually stopped coming.’

‘I still don’t understand why you gave letters to the postman when you realised that?’ Cathy insisted.

Nellie bit back, ‘I did it because I had to.’

Cathy shook her head. ‘You could have just left them all here and Molly could have had them when she came over on Sunday.’

‘If only you knew just how often I have been tempted to do just that,’ Nellie said. ‘But withholding mail is a serious offence, and one I would be in really hot water for if it were brought to the authority’s notice.’

‘But isn’t Molly’s grandmother withholding her mail?’

‘Yes, but Molly is a minor and under her grandmother’s care,’ Nellie said. She felt burdened by her part in all this, and in an effort to explain she addressed herself again to Molly.

‘If I was to do this and your grandmother was to find out, she could make trouble for me because of it, and you know, don’t you, Molly, that she would delight in doing that?’

Molly loved Nellie, the woman who had shown her nothing but kindness from the very first, and she saw immediately her dilemma.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I do understand, and you are right, my grandmother would love to get you into trouble – I know that as well as you – and I would hate it and feel responsible.’

‘If only we could find a way around this,’ Cathy mused.

Jack had taken no part in the discussion so far, but now he said sharply to his daughter, ‘Cathy, stop this at once. Your mother has explained it to you. Let that be an end to it.’

‘But what if Molly was to write from here and they could write back, addressing their letters to me?’

Nellie stared at her daughter. In fact, they all stared at her. Nellie knew she shouldn’t agree to this, but Jack said, ‘Don’t see any harm in that, Nellie. After all, there is no law in the land that says Cathy can’t write to anyone in the world if she takes a mind.’

‘The postman will wonder,’ Nellie said.

‘Yeah, he might, but he won’t connect it with Molly, will he?’ Cathy said. ‘You can tell him that I have a couple of pen friends in England, if you like. They are always advising us to do that at school, to broaden our horizons or something. Some of the others already do it, so it won’t seem all that strange.’

‘Do you know,’ Jack said, ‘it may just work. What d’you say, Molly?’

Molly turned her eyes on Jack and he saw the little flame of hope that had suddenly burned within her go out. She knew
writing to her people was as remote a reality as ever, because she couldn’t afford writing pad and envelopes, never mind stamps every week. Jack, though, guessed what was troubling her and, excusing himself, he left the table, coming back a few minutes later with a writing pad, a stack of envelopes and two pens.

‘Here you are, Molly,’ he said. ‘Merry Christmas, and don’t you worry about stamps, for I will buy them for you myself and will be glad to do it.’

Molly looked around the table at those good, kind people, so eager and willing to help her, and suddenly it was all too much, and she laid her head on the table and cried her eyes out.

When Stan had first received the command from Biddy that he stop writing to Molly, he went to see Hilda to find that she had received a similar letter. Even knowing Biddy’s character as he did, he didn’t think that she really and truly intended to totally cut the orphan child off from those who loved her and that when she had thought about it, she would relent. Hilda agreed with him and for a while they continued to write, until it was obvious from the silence that the letters were not getting through.

Stan had been so concerned that eventually, as Christmas was approaching, he had screwed up his courage to see Paul Simmons to tell him of his anxieties and ask his advice. Paul Simmons said he had reason to be concerned and admitted to Stan that he hadn’t taken to Biddy Sullivan when he had seen her at the funeral. He said he had been worried and a little dismayed when he realised that Molly was going to live with the old harridan in some godforsaken hole in Ireland.

‘There was nothing else for it,’ Stan said. ‘Even without the influence of the Church – though it would never do to underestimate the power that has – they couldn’t let her live with me, her being a girl and all, without a woman’s presence in the house.’

‘I crossed my mind to make her my ward,’ Paul said. ‘But then I thought I have a job of work to do, so she would
be in the care of servants and that wouldn’t be any good either. I was advised by a Catholic friend not even to bother mentioning the idea, because the Church would shoot it down in flames.’

‘That’s the very devil of it,’ Stan said. ‘We were both helpless.’

‘Yes, we were,’ Paul said. ‘However, this situation cannot be allowed to continue. Unfortunately, I am tied up all over Christmas and into the New Year, but in the spring, when the weather is a little more conducive to crossing the sea, I will go over and see the situation first-hand.’

Stan had been so relieved, but before that plan could be put into action, he received another letter from Molly at the very start of the New Year.

She never mentioned her grandmother, though she said a lot about Tom, the kindness of the townsfolk, her friendship with the McEvoys and particularly her best friend and ally, Cathy, who had devised this plan on how to keep in contact.

When Molly received the first letter back from her granddad she felt his love and concern for her could almost be lifted from the page. Kevin had drawn her a picture he had obviously signed all on his own and it was of their old house and all of them in it, including their parents. It saddened Molly and she was glad to turn to Hilda’s letter. The woman always had the ability to make her smile and, as she wrote as she spoke, it was just like having her in the room.

In rural Ireland, particularly on the farm, one day seemed very like another to Molly, and it was hard for her to visualise what was happening in other places, particularly the city she had been born in. When Molly had left Birmingham it had been a very depressed city in many ways, and from what her grandfather told her in his letters in 1936, it was in no better shape.

And then, in late January, the King died. Molly remembered the dour, bewhiskered King, whose picture had been
plastered everywhere in Birmingham in the weeks prior to his Jubilee celebrations the previous year.

No one in Ireland was the least bit bothered about which king or queen would be sitting on the throne in England, but it seemed that those in Birmingham at least had a lot to say about it. They weren’t that concerned about the old King dying so much as who was to succeed him and that was to be his handsome and flamboyant son Edward, who would then be known as Edward VIII.

‘Handsome is as handsome does, I always say,’ Hilda wrote in her letter.

Molly’s granddad said much the same, but it seemed the new King had no intention of knuckling down like people expected him to. Even the Irish papers had got hold of the story in the end.

‘He is handsome, you have to admit,’ Cathy said one Sunday in early February. She had the
Irish Times
spread out on her bed and both girls had been scrutinising it.

‘Oh, I think everyone agrees with that,’ Molly said. ‘But as Hilda said, being good-looking doesn’t mean he will be a good king. And he can’t have that woman as the Queen,’ she said, jabbing her finger at Edward’s escort who was gazing up at him with adoring eyes, though, even through the grainy newsprint, Molly thought her eyes looked calculating. ‘I mean, she’s another handsome one. Beautiful, in fact, and up to the minute with fashion, might even be really
nice, but none of that will matter because the British people will never accept her. Queen Wallace, can you imagine?’

Cathy laughed. ‘Doesn’t sound quite right, I must admit, but we could talk about it till the cows come home and it won’t make a bit of difference. And meanwhile, there is something else happening next week that I think will prove to be far more entertaining – like your birthday, for instance.’

‘Yeah, and thanks to you I will have cards from everyone,’ Molly said. ‘I know I can’t put them up or anything, but I will get them and that is more than I had at Christmas. I’m so grateful for you all doing this, Cathy, you having the idea in the first place and your parents providing the wherewithal. I don’t know if you realise how much I appreciate it.’

‘Course we realise,’ Cathy said. ‘You have told us enough times. Didn’t Daddy say last time you started on that if he heard one more thank you from you then you could buy your own stamps.’

Molly smiled. ‘Yes, he did.’

‘Well then, think on,’ Cathy said, jumping to her feet. ‘Come on, let’s go to Swan Park and see if the snowdrops and crocuses are out yet like Bernadette said they were.’

‘You’re on,’ Molly said, knowing that in the main it was always wiser to fall in with Cathy’s plans.

However, Molly had a surprise awaiting her the following week. Stan had been to see Paul Simmons on receipt of Molly’s letter outlining the new arrangements to ensure that she received her mail, and Paul was irritated by the subterfuge and thought it sounded draconian to deprive an orphaned child of letters from family and friends.

‘She says nothing about that,’ Stan said. ‘But I know she is not happy. I have known my granddaughter for nearly fourteen years and she can’t fool me. I reckon she will be back here as soon as she is able.’

‘She will need money for that.’

‘There is the fund you set up for her,’ Stan said. ‘I told
the grandmother nothing about it for I know whose pocket it would have lined, and Molly knows nothing about it either, of course.’

‘Maybe she should be told now then,’ Paul said. ‘From what I remember she is a mature and sensible girl. Ted was always on about her, on about you all. Great family man, was Ted.’

‘Aye, he was.’

‘Tragic loss.’

‘Aye.’

‘This will never do,’ Paul said impatiently. ‘Going all melancholy when it should be Molly we are thinking of. You say she is nearly fourteen?’

‘Aye, twelfth of February.’

‘Yes, well,’ said Paul. ‘While it is good for her to know that there will be money accrued for her for when she is twenty-one, that can seem an age away when you are fourteen. I think I will arrange for her to have some money of her own and a fourteenth birthday seems just about the right time to do that.’

‘It is so very kind of you,’ Stan said. ‘There just aren’t words.’

‘You don’t need any words,’ Paul said. ‘I am a rich man and it pleases me to do this. And I wouldn’t be here to enjoy those riches and gladden my parents’ hearts if it hadn’t been for Ted. That debt will not be repaid while one of his family is in any sort of need, and that is Molly at the moment.’

‘Paul Simmons is the most generous, open-hearted and genuine man I have ever met,’ Stan said to Hilda later. ‘I tell you, it would have been a terrible tragedy if he had died on the battlefield.’

‘I agree,’ Hilda said. ‘Thank God he didn’t.’

Molly was excited as she made her way to Cathy’s house the following Sunday because she was looking forward to
seeing the cards she knew would be waiting for her. Since the system had begun she would have her letters written by the time she arrived for Sunday tea so that she might not waste any of the time she spent with Cathy. Cathy would post the letters first thing on Monday morning so that they would arrive in Birmingham on Tuesday or Wednesday. Hilda and her granddad would write straight back and they would reach Buncrana post office by Friday or Saturday at the latest.

Molly was so glad to receive the replies, though they often reduced her to tears. If she could, she would wait till she reached the farm to read them and then she would then reread them over and over until she could repeat them word for word.

She was surprised to find four envelopes and one in a handwriting she didn’t recognise waiting for her that day, and as it was a special day she decided to open the letters there. Nellie and Jack had come to watch. Kevin’s card, which she opened first, was homemade and showed a girl on a hillside dotted with sheep and underneath the girl he had written ‘Molly’ and inside the card he had written in his wobbly hand, ‘Miss you. Lots of luv, Kevin.’

Inside the cards from Hilda and her granddad there were letters, which she put in her pocket for later, and then drew the mystery card towards her. The envelope was of the best quality and she caught a whiff of the scent on it as she slit it open. The card itself was silk and depicted a beautiful girl in a flowing dress in a garden awash with flowers.

‘Golly, who’s that from?’ Cathy breathed in admiration.

‘Mind your own business, Cathy,’ Nellie said reprovingly.

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ Molly said, looking up from reading the card with a smile. ‘Anyone would want to know. It’s not the normal run-of-the-mill card, after all, and it is from Dad’s old employer, Paul Simmons. You remember I told you about my father saving his life in the war and how he got a job working with him?’

‘Kind of him to send you a card, and all.’

‘Oh, he sent more than a card,’ Molly said, pulling out a five-shilling postal order. ‘He has written a little note here. Apparently he has set up a fund for me and Kevin to mature when we are twenty-one, but he says twenty-one seems a lifetime away when you are only fourteen and so from now on there will be five shillings a week coming from his solicitors.’

There was a gasp from the family. ‘Isn’t that the very devil’s own luck, Molly?’ Jack said.

‘Aye, and about time some good fortune happened to you,’ said Nellie sincerely. ‘And I am as pleased as if it was myself, for it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.’

‘Yes,’ said Cathy in impatient excitement. ‘But what are you going to do with all that money?’

‘Save it,’ Molly said decisively. ‘You know I intend to leave this place and I think Mr Simmons maybe knows that. He didn’t like my grandmother one bit – anyone could see that – but it didn’t surprise me because most normal people don’t.’

‘I don’t blame him either,’ Nellie said. ‘He sounds a wonderful man, so he does.’

‘He is,’ Molly agreed happily. ‘I knew nothing of any fund until this moment, and it will be lovely to have a bit of money when I am an adult, but I will not bide here until I am twenty-one. But to move anywhere, you need money behind you and I will save up all these five-shilling postal orders.’

‘Will I open you an account with the Post Office, Molly?’ Nellie said. ‘It will be safest, especially if I keep the book for you.’

Molly nodded. ‘I was going to ask you, because it wouldn’t be wise to keep anything at the farm.’

‘Do you destroy the letters or keep them?’ Cathy said.

‘I can’t bring myself to destroy them yet,’ Molly admitted, ‘though I know it would be safer. I daren’t keep them in
my room either; my grandmother isn’t above snooping around. But I have found a box behind all the bales of hay right at the back of the barn where my grandmother never goes. I keep all the stationery items there too and just smuggle in what I need, but I wouldn’t like money kept out there as well.’

‘Does Tom know about it?’

‘I’ve told my uncle nothing.’

‘Why?’ Nellie said. ‘Surely you know that Tom would never betray you?’

‘He wouldn’t mean to,’ Molly said. ‘But even though he has broken out a little and does stick up for me and himself a bit, he is still very much under his mother’s thumb in many ways. He is unnerved by her rages and when you are not fully in control of yourself, you can sometimes let things slip out. If he doesn’t know, then he can’t tell.’ She hesitated and then went on, ‘I don’t intend to tell him about the money either. I mean, I am really fond of Uncle Tom, but what if we should be talking about it and she overheard or something? I know with absolute certainty that if my grandmother got one sniff of this money she would have every penny piece off me. This will be my passport to freedom and I’d really rather no one but us in this room knew anything about the postal orders.’

‘You needn’t fret yourself, Molly,’ Nellie said ‘It is your business and that’s how it will stay.’ Cathy also promised and Nellie said, ‘Jack, you hear that?’

‘Course I hear it, and don’t you be pointing the finger at me,’ Jack said. ‘I can keep my own counsel the same as the next man.’

‘Even when the beer loosens your tongue, I mean?’

‘Even then,’ Jack said. He turned to Molly. ‘No one will hear a dicky bird from me of the events of this afternoon, I promise you faithfully.’

Molly sighed in relief. ‘Thanks, Jack – thanks, all of you. The first letter I shall write will be to Mr Simmons to thank
him. But,’ she added playfully to Jack, ‘I can afford my own stamps and all now.’

‘I should think so,’ Jack said, matching her mood. ‘And about time too, I think.’