from the clouds. Some of the fields were cultivated, set in rows with things growing in them; others were bare, the long grass waving in the breeze, or dotted with sheep, many with their lambs gambolling beside them. In another there might be horses, the lean racy sort, or the thick heavy ones with shaggy feet, the kind of horse the milkman and the coalman used in Birmingham. Sometimes, cows would lean their heads over the five-barred gates, placidly chewing and watching the train pass.
Now and again Molly would spy isolated farmhouses, and she realised suddenly she knew nothing about the farm she was going to. She asked her grandmother about it.
‘We do a bit of everything,’ Biddy said. ‘We grow vegetables, have a few cows, a pig and chickens, of course. We used to have sheep, but after my man died and Joe high-tailed it to America, Tom couldn’t manage the sheep as well as everything else. Even as it stands now, it’s a lot for one man. He will be glad of your help.’
‘But won’t I have to go to school?’
Biddy smiled her horrible, hard smile. She said with more than a measure of satisfaction, ‘I think you have enough book-learning. Any more won’t be any sort of asset on a farm.’
Molly’s heart sank. For one thing, she had thought school would get her away from her grandmother’s brooding presence for much of the day, and anyway she was good at her lessons. When her parents were both alive they had intended keeping her at school until she was sixteen and allowing her to matriculate. She told her grandmother this and went on, ‘Dad said it would help me get a good job in the end.’
Again there was that sardonic smile. ‘You have a job,’ Biddy said. ‘Like I said before, you’ll be on the farm alongside Tom, and all the book-learning in the world won’t make you any better at that.’
Molly felt suddenly cold inside and she held out little hope that she would get on any better with this Uncle Tom she had not seen, who was probably just as nasty as his mother. Her heart plummeted to her boots.
She saw her plans for any sort of life she might have imagined for herself crumble to dust, but she knew that to say any of this would achieve nothing. So she was silent, and mighty glad later to find her grandmother had fallen asleep.
If it hadn’t been for the other people on the train, Molly would never have managed at Crewe, where they had to change trains, for they also had to change platforms and other people helped carry the bags up the huge iron staircase, along the bridge spanning the line, and down the other side. Molly was immensely grateful, especially when those same people helped her board the ferry at Liverpool.
It was called the Ulster Prince, and she thought it magnificent, towering up out of the scummy grey water of the quay, with its three large black funnels atop everything, spilling grey smoke into the spring morning. She was on deck, the sun warm on her back and sparkling on the water as she watched the boat pull away. Her knuckles were white, she was gripping the rail so tightly. She remembered the promise she had made to Kevin and she vowed, but silently, ‘I will be back. However long it takes, I will be back.’
‘Come along,’ her grandmother said, just behind her. ‘They are serving breakfasts in the dining room until noon, and it is turned eleven already.’
Molly followed Biddy eagerly. They had been travelling for many hours and she had been too nervous to eat much before they left the house.
The dining room was delightful. Its windows were round, and when she queried this, she was told they were called portholes. In the dining room they were decorated with pretty pink curtains.
They could have creamy porridge with as much sugar and hot milk as anyone wanted, followed by toast and jam and a pot of tea, all for one and sixpence. Molly ate everything before her, and took three spoons of sugar in her tea, just because she could, and afterwards thought how much better a person felt when they had a full stomach. She kept this thought in her head just a little time. It certainly wasn’t there when she stood alongside her grandmother and a good many more and vomited all her breakfast into the churning waters.
By the time they alighted in Belfast, Molly was feeling decidedly ill. Her stomach ached and her throat burned from the constant vomiting that continued long after she had anything left, and made her feel wretched for the entire crossing, which took three and a half hours.
By the time they disembarked and were aboard the train, she was also feeling light-headed and had a throbbing pain behind her eyes. Her grandmother’s voice, berating her for something or other, seemed to be coming from a long way off and she was too tired and disorientated to distinguish what the woman was on about anyway. Her eyes closed almost by themselves, and the next thing she remembered was her grandmother shaking her roughly as the train pulled in to Derry.
She knew her uncle would be there to meet them with a horse and cart, to save them having to take the train the last step of the way. Molly was so travel worn and weary that she was immensely glad when she saw the man waiting for them, the shaggy-footed horse standing patiently between the shafts of the farm cart.
Tom knew he would never forget that meeting. It was like his sister Nuala had returned to him, but never had he seen his sister so disheartened and sad, nor her eyes with blue smudges beneath them and her face bleached white. He felt suddenly very sorry for the girl and went towards her with a smile.
‘Welcome to Ireland, Molly,’ he said, taking her limp hand and shaking it vigorously. ‘It is a pity that we are not meeting under happier circumstances. I was sorry to hear about the death of your parents and I’m sure you will miss them very much.’
Molly’s eyes filled with tears at her uncle’s words and the compassion in his face, and she knew that he was the antithesis of his mother.
Then Biddy, watching this scene, commented sarcastically, ‘Very touching. Now stop your stupid blethering, can’t you, and get this luggage into the cart.’
Molly saw the sag of her uncle’s shoulders at his mother’s words. ‘And welcome home to you too, Mammy,’ he said with a sigh, throwing up the bags and cases as he did so. He helped his mother up on to the seat beside him and then he turned to Molly with a smile. ‘Now you,’ he said, lifting her with ease. ‘And Dobbin here will have us home in a jiffy.’
It wasn’t quite a jiffy, for the horse wasn’t built for speed, but Molly took the opportunity to look around her. Once outside of the town, most of the farmhouses seemed to be white, squat, single-storey dwellings, with thick dark yellow roofs, and all the protruding chimneys had smoke curling upwards from them.
‘That’s your typical Irish cottage,’ Tom said, seeing Molly’s preoccupation.
‘Mom described them to me,’ Molly said, ‘but I’ve never see roofs like those. We had grey slate.’
Tom smiled. ‘That’s called thatch, Molly,’ he said. ‘It’s made of flax that we grow in the fields and then weave it together.’
They passed small towns and villages, and Molly noted the names of them. Springtown was the first, and then Burnfoot. It was as they neared a place called Fahan that Tom said, ‘Did your mammy tell you much about this place?’
‘Some,’ Molly said. ‘I mean, I knew she lived near Lough Swilly and that it was a saltwater lough because it fed out to the sea. In Birmingham most people have never seen the sea. It is just too far away. When we were on the boat was the first time I had seen it and then I was too sick to take in the expanse of it really.’
She stopped and then went on more hesitantly,
