Love Me Tender. Anne Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ gave a mirthless laugh and said, ‘Well, all I’ll say is that your old man must have plenty of lead in his pencil.’

      ‘Bridie!’ Mary cried. ‘Less of that talk.’

      But Bridie wasn’t finished. ‘Unless, of course, the wedding was rushed forward for a reason.’

      ‘You malicious cow!’ Maggie cried. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Well, let me tell you, my baby is due on the thirtieth of July. Not everyone’s the same as you, you know.’

      ‘What d’you mean?’ Bridie snapped.

      ‘Well you didn’t wait till the ring was on your finger, did you?’

      Bridie was white with fury. The reason for her rushed marriage had been covered up and Maggie had only been a child then, so it must have been discussed by them all since. She glared over at Kathy and Maggie cried, ‘Don’t be blaming anyone, Bridie. No one said a word to me, but I’m not stupid. I was eleven years old and well able to count to nine, but you’d only been married six months when Sheelagh appeared. Now treat me like a bloody simpleton why don’t you, and tell me she was premature?’

      ‘Come on now,’ Mary said, flustered by the way the whole conversation was going. ‘Let’s not have all this snapping and snarling at one another, but save our bad temper for the enemy.’

      Bridie for once had nothing to say. She threw them all a look of pure hatred and flounced out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

      Later, Mary said to Kathy, ‘I wonder if she’s jealous of you all. I mean, there’s been no sign since young Matt. Maybe she wants one herself and that’s what makes her so crabby at times.’

      ‘I think she was just born that way, Mammy,’ Kathy said. She thought over what Barry had told her before he left and went on, ‘and I don’t think she wants any more but the two she has, not really.’

      A few months later, the three expectant mothers listened, horrified, to the news that Hitler had invaded France, not through the Maginot Line that the French had thought impregnable, but through Belgium. German paratroopers had blasted their way through the Belgian defences, and the road through the country lay wide open.

      It soon became clear that many soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force were trapped on the shores of France, and when the news finally broke on 31 May, Operation Dynamo was revealed. Many small, privately owned boats of all shapes and sizes were pressed into service to run a shuttle service from the beaches of Dunkirk to the ships forced to lie offshore in deeper water, battling under heavy bombardment to lift as many men as possible to safety.

      Kathy listened to every news report and scoured the papers, and prayed like she’d never prayed before. Her prayers were partially answered, for in early June she got a letter saying that Barry was in a military hospital on the south coast. Her relief was short-lived though, for only minutes later Bridie arrived wailing at the door, waving a telegram in her hand and crying that Pat was missing, presumed dead.

      Kathy, though bitterly upset over the news about Pat, was nevertheless determined to see Barry and check he was all right. Her parents thought it was the last thing on earth she should do. ‘They’ll transfer him nearer later,’ Mary said.

      ‘I don’t want to wait till later. I must see him now and at least know he’s all right. Maybe he has some news of the others.’

      ‘Cutie, dear, think about it,’ Mary said. ‘Traipsing the country in your condition isn’t wise or sensible. God above, look what happened to wee Seamus.’

      ‘You’re taking a big risk, Kathy,’ Eamonn said, agreeing with his wife.

      Kathy knew she was taking a big risk and her parents were justified in their concern – and she knew this headlong dash she was determined on could bring about the very thing she dreaded: a premature birth. But the urge to see Barry and reassure herself overrode her other fears. ‘I can’t just sit here fretting over him. I’ll go mad,’ she cried. ‘One way or the other, I’m going to make it to that south coast hospital as soon as is humanly possible. And what if he has news of Con, or Michael or Sean,’ she went on. ‘Don’t tell me you’re not as worried sick about them as I am?’ She looked at her parents, their faces creased and lined with anxiety and said more gently, ‘I’m going. Sensible or not, I’m going. Will you mind the weans for me?’

      ‘Aye, surely we will,’ Mary said. ‘You don’t have to ask, if you’re determined to go.’

      ‘I’m determined well enough,’ Kathy said. ‘And I’m away now to tell his mother, give her the good news that Barry is alive.’

      ‘Aye, poor soul,’ said Mary with feeling. ‘She’ll need something to hang on to, with the telegrams she had the other day. Lord, to hear of two sons killed in one day is hard to take.’

      ‘Och, woman, don’t be so daft,’ snapped Eamonn. ‘It doesn’t matter a damn when you hear it; to lose two sons would rip the heart out of you.’

      The room fell silent and all had the same thought. The only one of the family they were sure about was Barry, and he was in hospital with God alone knew what injuries. Pat was missing, and of Sean, Michael or Con there was no news. They could all be casualties of this war, Kathy thought.

      But Barry was alive, she told herself, and she held on to that thought. Nothing else mattered at that moment. She knew she wouldn’t rest until she saw him for herself. She needed to hold him close and tell herself that he was alive and going to stay that way.

       FOUR

      Long before Kathy reached her destination she was feeling hungry and exhausted. Her journey had been subject to unexplained delays and stoppages, and the carriages were full of troops. Posters demanded, Is Your Journey Really Necessary? and she thought wearily that if it wasn’t, the way her trek had gone so far, she wouldn’t have made the effort.

      Kathy could never remember travelling on a train before. She knew she must have done when she left Ireland with her parents, but she’d been just a child then and she had little recollection of her life before that of the back-to-back houses of Birmingham’s inner ring.

      Since then she’d never once ventured out of the city, and was totally unprepared for the clamour, noise and bustle of New Street station. The clatter of trains, slamming of doors and shrill whistles of the porters mixed with the shouts and cries of the people thronging the platform – many in khaki, Kathy noticed – made her nervous.

      A train clattered to a stop behind her with a squeal of brakes and a hiss of steam that seeped along its wheels. Suddenly there was a terrifying loud shriek from a train opposite and Kathy saw billows of steam emerging from a brass funnel. She could smell soot and smoke in the air, and the place was so draughty, her teeth began to chatter.

      She glanced at the large clock hung above the station platform, wondering where her train was. The clock said ten twenty, and yet the train should have left at five past. When it eventually arrived, with a deafening rumble, she was quite unnerved, but the mass of people surged forward and she was swept along in the flow.

      Once inside, everyone but Kathy seemed to know what to do. She trailed up and down the corridor looking for an empty, or near-empty, compartment, but the train was cram-packed.

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