said, ‘and then life will go back to normal. No danger of Bridie taking a liking to the place and wanting to live there anyway.’ And that made Jimmy a happy man – it would make his world complete if, when Bridie did decide to marry, it was to one of the local boys and she’d live not far from them.
‘Aye,’ Sarah said with feeling, for she’d missed her youngest daughter and longed to have her home again. When she’d been placed in Sarah’s arms after her birth, Sarah thought she’d never rear her. She thought she’d go the way of the three she lost to TB after Johnnie. Then when Robert and Nuala had both died, she was convinced that Bridie would never reach adulthood. But here she was, on the threshold of it, and still fit and healthy, as beautiful and kindly as ever. ‘Aye, she’ll be home soon enough,’ Sarah said with satisfaction. ‘And, if you ask me, I think it will be a long time before she goes so far again.’ She could have added, ‘Unlike Mary.’ She’d been so upset when Mary went on her wee holiday in the spring of 1926 and had fallen in love with a man called Eddie Coghlan. It had only helped slightly that Eddie was from Derry and a good Catholic into the bargain, because it still meant their daughter would be living and bringing up any grandchildren miles away from them.
Sarah had been inclined to blame her sister and wrote her a letter telling her so but, as Jimmy said, love is not a thing you can watch out for. Ellen couldn’t have known that Mary would lose her heart to a man at the Easter dance they’d taken her to at their local Parish Church. At least, he’d said in Eddie’s defence, he was in work, not everyone was as fortunate.
So Eddie was welcomed into the family and Sarah never admitted how much she missed her eldest daughter. As long as she had Bridie, she told herself, she would be content, so Sarah was glad Bridie was disliking the place so much.
But, little by little, Bridie got used to the noise and bustle of the city and started to enjoy her stay at Mary’s. Eddie went out of his way to make her welcome, but she most enjoyed the times she had alone with Mary. One day, when they were alone in the house, she asked her a question that had been playing on her mind since she arrived, for Mary looked far rounder than she remembered her. ‘Mary, are you having a baby?’
‘Aye. Didn’t Mammy tell you?’
‘No. Why didn’t you? You never said in your letters.’
‘It’s silly to say the same thing twice,’ Mary said. ‘I write to you about different things, but I did think Mammy would say. I’m five months now. What did you think, that I’d just put on weight?’ Without waiting for Bridie’s reply, she asked, ‘Would you like to feel it kick?’
Bridie flushed and looked at her as if she couldn’t believe her ears. ‘Don’t you mind?’
‘Not at all.’
Bridie put her hand out and felt the child move beneath her fingers and saw the material of the smock Mary had on ripple. She was awed by the thought of a living being inside her sister. And then, because it was her sister and she felt comfortable enough, she asked the question she’d puzzled over for an age: ‘Mary, how did it get in there?’
Mary was surprised Bridie hadn’t tumbled to it living on a farm. But then she remembered Bridie was always sent elsewhere when the bull or rams were due to service their cows and sheep. It was an effort to protect her, Mary supposed, but children could be protected too much.
She bit on her lip as she considered whether to divulge the whole matter of sex with her younger sister. She’d never get the information from their mother, she knew that, because she’d never discuss anything so intimate. Mary had got all her information from Aunt Ellen and she often thanked God she had.
So she told Bridie how the seed inside her had grown into a baby and watched Bridie’s eyes open wider and wider in shock as she spoke. ‘Something else occurs before a woman can have a baby,’ Mary told her. ‘They’re called periods and they mean you bleed from your private parts every month. You need to know: I began mine at school and because I hadn’t been warned, I thought I was dying. Sister Ambrose eventually found me in the toilets, limp from crying, and explained it to me and took me home.’
‘Was Mammy cross?’
‘No,’ Mary said. ‘But she was embarrassed. She told me she had linen pads in the press ready and I was to pin one to my liberty bodice. When they were soiled I was to put them in the bucket she’d leave ready and that respectable women didn’t need to know any more than that, in fact they didn’t need to talk of it at all.’
‘And that bleeding happens to every woman every month?’ Bridie asked, curling her mouth in distaste.
‘Aye,’ Mary said, smiling at her sister’s discomfort. ‘I’m afraid it does. It’s a sort of preparation for motherhood and even people like Aunt Ellen, who’ve never had children, have periods.’
‘So, when … How will I know when it will be?’ Bridie asked.
‘Your body will change first,’ Mary told her. ‘Your breasts will begin to grow and you’ll get hair down below.’
Bridie let out a sigh of relief. She’d been horrified to see the little swellings around her nipples and even more so to see hair sprouting where it had never done before, certain that she was abnormal and too worried to even contemplate discussing it with Rosalyn.
Mary heard the sigh and saw the relief, but hid her smile. She was glad she’d told her. ‘But,’ she cautioned her, ‘don’t you be telling Mammy about this, d’you hear? She’ll have my mouth washed out with carbolic.’
‘I won’t,’ Bridie promised with a giggle, visualising her mother forcing a bar of soap into Mary’s mouth. ‘I’m glad you’ve told me. I’ve wondered, you know.’
‘Of course you’ve wondered, it’s natural,’ Mary said. ‘And you needed to be told. But one thing I do agree with Mammy about is respecting yourself. It’s all the advice she ever gave me, but for all that she was right. Boys will try to … well, you know what I mean, and if you let them, they’ll not respect you anymore. Wait for the ring like I did. Believe me, it’s worth it.’
‘I don’t know if I want to get married,’ Bridie said doubtfully. ‘I don’t think I want to be doing that sort of thing to make babies either.’
‘Oh you will, little sister,’ Mary said with a laugh. ‘You will.’
Almost as soon as Terry picked Bridie up at the docks three weeks later, she knew there was something wrong with him. But she also knew to press him would only annoy and so she waited for him to tell her.
She hadn’t long to wait: Terry was bursting to tell somebody his news and as soon as they were seated on the train, he couldn’t contain himself. Bridie looked at him in astonishment. ‘Leave the farm? But, Terry …’
‘Hear me out first,’ Terry said, ‘and then judge if you want to, Bridie.’
Bridie nodded and Terry went on. ‘Look at me – I’m twenty years old in a week’s time, I never go out, I’ve never dated a girl in all my life and why? Because I never get a penny piece of my own, that’s why. Oh, they point out, Mam and Dad, that this place will be mine one day – Seamus will hardly want it – and they remind me I have a warm house and plenty of food and clothes bought for me when I need them. Aye,
