and the two girls kissed and hugged and vowed they would write. Bridie watched her climb into the rail bus, carrying Maria’s two-year-old while Maria held the baby in her arms and the older child by the hand, and she felt black desolation sweep over her at the loss of her friend.
A week later, Bridie realised that she had missed her second period and two weeks after that she was sick in the chamber pot as she got out of bed. The same happened the next morning and the next and almost every morning after it. She was whiter than ever and dark smudges had appeared beneath her eyes. ‘That girl will sicken if she goes on like this,’ she overheard her mother say to her father.
‘She looks far from well indeed,’ Jimmy agreed.
‘I’ve heard her being sick a time or two as well,’ Sarah said. ‘God knows, she’s thin enough already. I think I’ll have the doctor look her over if she doesn’t pick up. Maybe she needs a tonic.’
Jesus! Bridie knew what sort of a tonic the doctor would order and that news would tear the heart out of her parents. What was she to do? Eventually they would find out. Pregnancy was something no one could hide for ever.
She lay in bed, night after night, thinking what to do as one November day slid into another. But there was no solution. If she were to tell her parents now what had happened the night of the dance, doubt would linger. They’d wonder why she’d said nothing that night. Francis had his story ready too; he’d already told her what he’d say if she accused him. Dear Lord, he might deny it altogether and lay the blame on one of the young lads at the dance.
He might say they’d been around her all night like bees around a honey pot and suggest she had been more than willing. And hadn’t he told Rosalyn he’d searched the place for Bridie and not been able to find her? She knew with dread certainty that Francis would be believed before her.
When news of Bridie’s pregnancy got out, her parents would be destroyed. Out would go their respectability, their standing in the community. The two families who’d helped each other and shared things for years would be rent apart. It would be particularly hard for her parents to cope; maybe they’d find it so hard they’d have to leave the farm, their life’s work, perhaps even leave the town.
And the townsfolk would blame her. She must have asked for it, they would say, must have done something to provoke such a thing. God, she could almost hear them. ‘Can you trust the young hussies these days, wearing less clothes than is decent and teasing and tormenting honest men? Jesus, it would take a man to watch himself.’
There would be little or no sympathy for her. She’d be the disgraced single parent and her parents dragged through the mud with her. And at the end of this, would be a bastard child that no one would want, a symbol of her loose behaviour, a child that would be held up to ridicule and scorn because he or she had no father.
She knew it would be better if she was well away from the place before the pregnancy should be discovered. Yet, she asked herself, how could she just up and leave? But she knew in her heart of hearts that she must. Though her parents could not manage without her on the farm, neither could they cope with what she carried in her belly and she had no right to shame them like that.
Other people had begun to notice that Bridie looked far from well. Father O’Dwyer had stopped her in the church porch and commented on how pale she was. ‘Mind, I suppose everyone has poor colour at his time of the year,’ he had continued. ‘It doesn’t do my old bones much good either. We’ll all feel better in the spring, what d’you say?’
Bridie had said nothing and managed only a fleeting smile. If she stayed until the spring, the decision would be taken out of her hands and her life, and that of her parents, might as well be over.
All the next week she dithered. Her father had never seemed so old, so stiff, and her mother’s one arm was more useless than ever. She was slow to do everything and, Bridie guessed, often in pain. How in God’s name could she leave these good kind people to cope by themselves?
Then, one evening, her mother said, ‘I’m making an appointment for you to see the doctor this week, Bridie.’
‘What?’ Bridie cried, startled and alarmed.
‘Look at you, there’s not a pick on you,’ Sarah said. ‘People are commenting on how thin you’ve got, and there are bags under your eyes too. You’re not right and haven’t been since Rosalyn left. You’ve got to eat more; you’re not eating enough to keep a bird alive at the moment. Delia said that is probably what has stopped your monthlies. She says she’s heard of it before, but whatever it is, I’m sure the doctor will sort it out.’
Oh by God he would sort it out right enough, Bridie thought. ‘Mammy,’ she pleaded, ‘just leave it a wee while longer. You’re right, I haven’t been sleeping, and I will try to eat more, but don’t go bothering the doctor yet?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘Your father’s worried.’
‘Please, Mammy? Leave it just a bit and if I’m no better in a week or two, then I’ll see the doctor.’
Sarah reluctantly agreed, but for a while only and Bridie knew that for her the die was cast. She’d have to leave her home and as speedily as possible. She knew she would be castigated by everyone about. Neighbours were well aware how much Bridie was thought of, for her parents said so often and also said how they relied on her, but Bridie could do nothing about people’s opinion. Better they thought her the worst daughter in the world than stay and let them find out the truth.
Later in bed, sleep driven from her with worry, she thought of what she must do. There was only one place to go and that was Mary’s; she would know what to do. But how to get to there without detection was a problem. She couldn’t tell her parents that she was going away for a wee holiday and go along to Barnes More Halt and buy a ticket like any other body.
In fact, she couldn’t go on the rail bus at all this side of the border; anyone could spot her. If she could make it to Strabane Station, which was in the English six counties, and catch the steam train from there to Derry, she’d have a chance of getting away. A girl travelling alone would also be less noticeable in a busier place, whereas she’d stand out like a sore thumb in a country station.
She also had to be well away from the farm before her father rose for the milking at five o’clock. She knew the first rail bus left Killybegs at five o’clock, as she’d often heard it chugging past the end of the farm while she was at the milking. According to the rail bus timetable it didn’t reach Strabane until half past six. There the travellers would get out and board the steam train for Derry, she remembered that from her last visit.
But how was she to get to Strabane, about twenty miles away or more? She’d have to go in the middle of the night, but she’d never walk that distance in time for the five o’clock train. Her father once told her a person could walk four miles an hour at a steady pace. But his steady pace was a run for someone of Bridie’s size and that was also on a good flat road in the daylight. It would be different up hill and down dale in the pitch black. She thought bleakly that it was one thing to decide to leave, but quite another for it to be achieved. She mulled the problem over and over in her head, without coming to any conclusion, until sleep finally overtook her.
The next day, as she was at the back of the barn searching for a sack or two to collect any tree branches brought down by the gales of the previous days, she uncovered Mary’s old bike.
Her father was busy elsewhere and there was no one else about, so she hauled it out, dusted it off roughly and studied it. It was in a sorry state altogether: rusted up, missing some spokes and the tyres as flat as pancakes. It had once been Mary’s pride and joy and the first thing she’d bought when she’d began at the shirt factory in the town. She’d used to go in and out of town on it most days then, unless the rain was lashing or the snow feet thick on the roads, for she said it kept her fit, as well as saving the rail bus fare.
Since she’d left, it had lain unused, forgotten about. Bridie could cycle – she’d learned from Mary when she was a child and carefree – and a germ of an idea began to grow in her mind.