a stomach turning somersaults in case she should have to ask for help in some area of the work. She wished someone could tell her how to deal with it.
By the late spring of 1930 the situation between herself and her uncle had got worse rather than better and she knew something had to be done, and so she decided to take Mary’s advice and speak to her mother.
It was not a success. Sarah truly didn’t see there was a problem, or chose to misunderstand what Bridie was trying to say. Bridie, knowing of her mother’s naïvety, chose to believe the former. Not that she was experienced herself, but every nerve in her body cried out that what her uncle was doing was wrong. Yet, unless she was able to describe in detail what her uncle said and, more importantly, where he touched her, which she couldn’t begin to explain to her mother; she’d never understand. ‘What do you mean, you don’t like him kissing you and holding you?’ Sarah demanded. ‘Hasn’t he done that since the day you were born?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘But nothing, Miss. God, Bridie, I hope you’re not getting above yourself, I thought you had more sense.’
‘I have, Mammy. It’s just that …’
‘I hope you haven’t been bothering your father with this nonsense? You know what he thinks of Francis. God, I’d hate to be the person that came between them.’
No, she’d said nothing to her father, she wasn’t a fool altogether. And she didn’t want to be the one that would separate one brother from the other either as her revelations certainly would. She realised in that moment that she was on her own and not even Mary’s promised visit in August of that year could lift her spirits.
However, Mary believed every word her anguished sister had written to her, and with reason, and was furiously angry on her behalf. She intended to seek her uncle Francis out at the first opportunity and put the fear of God into him.
But when Mary eventually arrived back home she was the feted daughter, welcomed home with Aunt Ellen, now semi-recovered from her rheumatics, and wee Jamie, an enchanting toddler turned two years old, who enthralled Jimmy and Sarah and even Bridie.
It was almost a week before Mary got her chance to see her uncle Francis without anyone else in earshot. She’d said nothing to Bridie of her intention and now she faced her uncle across the field of ripening hay he was surveying.
Her stomach churned as she looked at him. He seemed so harmless. But she hardened her heart against him for Bridie’s sake. ‘I believe you’ve been giving our Bridie a hard time recently?’
‘Not at all. What’s she been saying?’
‘Never mind. She’s said enough,’ Mary snapped. ‘We won’t go into it now – you’d just deny everything, I imagine, and then I’d get angry, because I’d stake my life on Bridie telling the truth. All the years of her growing up, I’ve never known her lie.’
‘I demand to know what she’s complained of,’ Francis said. ‘How else can I protest against it?’
‘Don’t even think you can,’ Mary answered scathingly. ‘If you examine your conscience, you’ll know what Bridie has complained of. And I’m telling you it has to stop, here and now. You think if she complains she won’t be believed, she’s even told me that. Well, let me tell you, if this doesn’t stop, the letters she’s sent to me, telling me what you try to do and what you say, will be given to prominent people in your life. Aunt Delia, for example, or Father O’Dwyer. Believe me, if you do not leave my sister alone she will not be the one painted black in this instance because I’ll tell my tale too. Some people might then begin to wonder about Sally McCormack so think on, Uncle Francis.’
Francis began to bluster. ‘Mary, for God’s sake. You know there was no proof that I’d ever touched that gypsy brat. As for your sister … Well, let’s just say she has a vivid imagination.’
‘And me? Have I a vivid imagination too?’
‘You misunderstood me.’
‘Like Hell I did,’ Mary spat out.
‘Look, Mary, Bridie has got the whole thing wrong, out of proportion. That’s all it was and that’s all I’m prepared to say on the subject.’
‘Well, it isn’t all I’m prepared to say,’ Mary barked out angrily. ‘I don’t care what label you put it under, or how you try to justify it, if she writes to me in the same vein again, you will have cooked your goose as far as your family, your wife and your standing in the community are concerned. I hope you understand that.’
Francis understood all right. He stood at the crossroads of his life and he knew if he was to go forward, Mary would ruin him. Somehow, he had to control the fascination Bridie held for him in order to keep the life he had and, though he made no reply, Mary knew she’d frightened him and dearly hoped it was enough to help her sister.
Mary never told Bridie of the conversation she had with their uncle Francis and the threat she’d issued, so Bridie didn’t look for any significant change in his behaviour once Mary left for home.
But at the harvest, which the two families had always worked together, Uncle Francis was quite curt with her, when he spoke at all. She didn’t see why he should seem so annoyed with her, but preferred that attitude to his previous one, so didn’t bother worrying over it.
She still viewed the coming winter – the rambling season and Christmas – with apprehension, but she needn’t have worried. Francis made no attempt to waylay her, or even say anything slightly suggestive, but rather seemed to avoid her if he could.
She was able to say this in a letter to Mary, who was glad she hadn’t Bridie to worry about for that autumn she had discovered she was expecting again. The baby was due in April and she knew she’d have her hands full soon enough.
In the New Year 1931, Father Dwyer began a fortnightly social in the church hall for young Catholic boys and girls over the age of sixteen. There was to be no strong drink, but it was a place to meet and chat and dance to the records played on the old gramophone belonging to the priest.
It hardly headed the list of exciting places to be but, as Rosalyn said, it was better than nothing and might brighten up those bleak winter months. Nearly everyone in the place was known to them anyway – most of the girls they’d been at school with, while the boys were usually their brothers or cousins, or friends they’d known for years.
Bridie could have been in great demand and yet as the winter came to an end, she’d given none of the boys the slightest encouragement to take an interest in her. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Rosalyn asked, as they walked home together one night. ‘It isn’t as if you don’t know the boys. You even know most of their families.’
‘I know.’
‘Don’t you like any of them?’
‘Not particularly. Not the way you mean.’
‘Don’t you want to be kissed and held and … well, you know?’
Oh how well Bridie knew and she also knew she’d had enough of that sort of carry-on with her uncle to last her a lifetime. There
