a heavy heart. He had been in his bed just about an hour and a half and he had no enthusiasm to face the day, for concern for Aggie was like a large knot of worry inside him. Added to this, he had to pretend he knew nothing about her disappearance in the night.
Biddy was annoyed that Aggie had not done her jobs that morning. Thinking that she had overslept, she told Joe, pounding through the house to join his brother and father in the cowshed, to rouse Aggie.
‘I can’t. Aggie isn’t there, Mammy,’ Joe said.
‘Not there?’ Biddy echoed, going in to see for herself. Aggie’s bed was empty. Biddy could only presume that she had risen early and gone off on pursuits of her own. She herself had to complete the jobs Aggie usually did and she remarked to Thomas John that the girl would get the rough edge of her tongue when she did return. Thomas John, however, remembered his daughter’s strange behaviour the previous day and warned her not to be too harsh on the girl.
‘Maybe she wasn’t feeling too well this morning and needed to walk in the fresh air a wee while,’ Thomas John went on. ‘Generally, you must admit she has never given you any bother.’
‘No,’ Biddy conceded. ‘In the main, she is a good girl.’
‘Well, then,’ Thomas John said, ‘let her have a few minutes to herself and I’m sure she will be full of apology and explanation when she does come home.’
She didn’t come home, though, that was the problem, and with the milking over Tom and Joe were sent to scour the farm lest Aggie had fallen and hurt herself. By the time they returned, Biddy had checked her room, found her things missing and knew she had run away.
‘But where would she run to and why?’ Thomas John asked.
‘The why we can go into when she is brought back,’ Biddy commented grimly. ‘As for where, well sure there is nowhere but Buncrana, for the girl knows no one beyond, and has no money. Tom, as soon as dinner is eaten I want you to go into Buncrana and ask around her friends and all. Be discreet. I don’t want the Garda alerted yet. I am sure she will be found in no time at all.’
Tom knew she wouldn’t be. If all had gone to plan she would now be on her way to Birmingham. Hatred for McAllister, who had forced this course of action on his sister, deepened still further. Though he knew it was fruitless Tom played the part and asked around. When he returned Thomas John insisted on informing the Garda and two officers came to the cottage that evening.
They were grim-faced but reassuring. ‘You’d not be up on what the young are at at all, at all,’ the older man said, ‘but as she has no money and no place to go, we’ll soon pick her up, never fear.’
‘There were gypsies camping not that far away for a few days,’ the younger garda said.
‘I hope you are not suggesting that my daughter has run away to gypsies?’ Biddy asked, affronted.
‘I’m not saying she has, missus,’ the garda went on, though he knew she wouldn’t be the first one to do that. ‘It’s just that gypsies get about and hear things.’
But the gypsy camp had been disbanded and there was not a sign of them when the garda investigated. The news that Aggie had run away with the gypsies spread like wildfire, as such things do. Tom could see that the garda believed that as well.
That first Sunday, after Mass, many came to talk to Biddy and she knew that while some offered support, others were there to gloat a little that their daughters hadn’t done such a thing. Tom, though, could not believe his ears when he heard McAllister commiserate with his father as he shook him by the hand.
He said that he had known Aggie well through the dancing and she was the last person he thought would disappear from her home and worry her parents so. ‘All goes to show that no one person knows the heart of another,’ he went on. ‘But this is one heart anyway you can be sure of, and if you need anything you only have to ask.’
‘Thank you, Bernie,’ Thomas John said. ‘You are very good. Tell you the truth, this has knocked me for six. I would never have said that Aggie was a bold girl, but this is as bold as it gets.’
McAllister nodded sagely in agreement and heat flowed through Tom at the unfairness of it all. One person noted Tom’s discomfort and his cheeks flushed crimson, and that was McAllister’s wife, Philomena. She remembered that the night that Aggie was reputed to have gone missing was the night that Bernie hadn’t sought his bed until the early hours. The following day she had found a large amount of money missing from the till.
It didn’t take much to put two and two together and her heart ached for she knew she was partly to blame. If she had left Bernie to his just deserts in Birmingham that time and come to Buncrana alone, she could bet that Aggie Sullivan would not have felt the need to flee the way she did, and her heart went out to the boy who so obviously missed his sister.
All morning, Tom festered over what McAllister had done and what he had said to his father. And then at dinner his mother referred to Aggie as ‘a viper in the nest’, and said that she was no longer a child of hers and no one was to mention her name in the house ever again.
‘Mammy, what are you saying?’ Tom gasped.
‘Is there a problem with your ears, Tom?’
‘No, but Mammy—’
‘It’s the only thing to do, caddie. This is the only way that I can cope with it.’
Tom noted the deep lines on his mother’s face, her eyes puzzled and confused, while his father’s was just a mask of sadness. He felt for both of them. ‘I know, Mammy,’ he nodded. ‘I am not blaming you, but it will be hard for me to forget Aggie ever existed.’
‘Well, you must try, lad,’ Biddy said sharply. ‘And that goes for all of you,’ she added, glaring at her family as they sat staring at her. ‘She has run away from this family to God knows where, so therefore she no longer deserves to be part of it. Her name is never to be mentioned again and it’s no good looking over our shoulders all the days of our lives expecting her to come in at the door.’
Tom knew she would never do that, but he could hardly bear it. The sister he had known all his life was gone forever. He knew if he allowed himself to dwell on that thought, the tears would start in his eyes and that would never do. No one said a word, not even his father. They sat in stunned silence, even little Finn, who had picked up the charged atmosphere. But then, in God’s truth, knowing as little as they did, what was there to say?
Suddenly, the Sunday dinner that Tom looked forward to all week tasted like sawdust, and he pushed his plate away, leaving the food half eaten. His mother hated waste and, normally, would have given out to him, but that day she took his plate away without a word.
‘Daddy, would you mind if I took a wee walk out?’
It was an unusual request. Tom had scant free time and even on Sunday there were jobs aplenty for him to do. However, Thomas John knew that the knot of worry he had for his daughter was shared by Tom and so he said gently, ‘Aye, Tom. See if the fresh air can help you any.’
Outside, the day was overcast and there was a hint of moisture in the air. Tom saw not another soul out and about like himself, though he went nearly as far as the town.
Philomena saw him standing on the hill above the shop. Her heart went out to him and she suddenly thought she had to talk to the dejected boy, try to help him in some way. Calling to her elder two children to mind the others for a while, she followed him.
Tom was glad he met no one because he knew he would be poor company that day. What McAllister had done filled his mind. As if abusing and raping his sister and causing her to flee from her home were not enough, he had had the barefaced cheek to commiserate with his father that morning. ‘One heart you can be sure of,’ he’d said. That man’s heart would be as black as pitch, Tom thought.
And then, as if his thought had conjured him up, he saw McAllister riding down the country lane below him. He knew he was bound for the O’Learys’ cottage, whose farm