was so stiff and cold that she cried out as she tried to straighten up. Her legs shook from the unusual exertion and shooting pains ran through her fingers right up to her shoulders and she groaned aloud. She stood for a moment, not sure her legs could carry her further. Eventually, she moved off cautiously, staggering slightly as she clambered onto the station platform and looked about for a shelter of some kind.
There was a waiting room open, not a terribly welcoming place and with just basic benches around the walls, but it was out of the bad weather at least and she sank down onto a bench with a sigh of relief.
She had no idea of the time, but she was deathly tired. A sudden yawn overtook her and she leaned back and closed her eyes. Her stomach growled with emptiness and she wondered where she could get something to eat. She’d stupidly not thought to bring anything and had given the soda bread to the dogs back on the farm to quieten them. Now she’d get nothing before the morning but was almost too tired to care. She couldn’t sleep deeply though. What if, after all the effort she’d gone to, she missed the train?
She kept nodding off, her head dropping forward rousing her and eventually, in absolute weariness, she unwound her wet scarf from her neck and, using that and her saturated hat as a pillow, lay down and fell into a deep, deep sleep.
Tom Cassidy entered the station a few minutes before the rail bus pulled in from Donegal. He was glad he was leaving his home but felt as guilty as Hell at that relief.
He had stepped into the waiting room to shelter from the weather and noticed the little girl – for that’s all she looked – lying across the bench asleep. He wondered whether she was for the train to Derry like himself, or the rail bus back to Donegal, but whichever it was, if he didn’t wake her she wouldn’t catch either.
Bridie woke up bemused, cold and stiff and not sure where she was at first. She let out a cry of pain as she tried to straighten her legs that had gone into cramp while she’d slept.
‘Are you all right?’
‘My legs! I have cramp.’
Tom wanted to offer to rub them for her, but he could hardly do that. ‘If you try to stand, hold on to me and walk a little. It might ease,’ he said.
Even through her pain, Bridie thought Tom’s voice was one of the gentlest she’d ever heard and somehow trustworthy. She wished she could see his face properly, but the darkness had not lifted and although there were lights in the station, the waiting area was very dim.
But, as Tom had suggested, she struggled to her feet, holding tight to him, and he realised just how saturated her clothes were. He was about to comment on it when she suddenly cried, ‘I have no ticket. I have money, but I arrived too early to buy it.’
‘I’ll get your ticket,’ Tom offered, and Bridie rooted in her bag, unearthed the handkerchief, exposing some coins and a fair few notes as she unknotted it. ‘Where are you making for?’
‘Derry,’ Bridie told him.
‘Single or return?’
‘Oh, a single,’ she said. ‘I’m going on from there to Belfast and across on the ferry to England. I’m bound for Birmingham.’ Bridie was surprised she’d told a stranger this; she was usually more cautious. But she felt instinctively drawn to this man.
Tom’s face creased in anxiety. ‘Look, you are all right, aren’t you?’ he asked, alarmed. ‘You look very young and … well, you’re not running away or anything, are you?’
Bridie ignored the last question. Instead, she said, ‘I was eighteen last February, so I’m nearly nineteen. I’m going to my sister’s for a wee while and I’m wet because I cycled here and set out far too early because I wasn’t sure how long it would take me.’
‘Sorry,’ Tom said. ‘You just don’t look eighteen.’
‘You can’t see me any better than I can see you,’ Bridie complained. ‘You’re going on my size alone, but I’ve told you the truth.’
That seemed to satisfy Tom and he took her money and went out to the booking office just as the rail bus pulled into the station. Bridie emerged from the shelter cautiously, worried that there might be someone on board that rail bus who might recognise her. But few passengers travelled at that early hour in the depths of winter and she knew no one and so, more confidently, she followed Tom to the other platform where the train to Derry stood waiting.
Tom helped Bridie on to the train, stowing her bags on the seat beside her before saying, ‘Why don’t you take your coat off, it’s soaked through.’
‘It’s no good,’ Bridie said. ‘My things underneath are wet too. I’ve bought other things with me, but they’ll probably be just as bad. The bags are sodden.’
‘Even so,’ Tom said, unbuttoning his coat, ‘take it off and put this around you.’
Bridie did as Tom bade her and as he tucked his coat around her, he said, ‘Maybe we should introduce ourselves?’ and he extended his hand. ‘I’m Tom, Tom Cassidy.’
Tom’s hand was nearly twice the size of Bridie’s. She’d thought of giving him a false name, but had rejected it. No harm in giving him her real name. It was a shame, but she doubted she’d ever set eyes on him again. ‘I’m Bridie McCarthy,’ she said and asked, ‘Where are you bound for, Mr Cassidy?’
‘Birmingham, the same as you,’ Tom said. ‘Now isn’t that a fine coincidence? We can travel together if you’d like that, and the name’s Tom. I’ve done this trip many a time. My parents have a farm that my sisters now look after. I was over because my father was ill. He had pneumonia and we thought it was the end. He had the last rites and all, you know. But he’s rallied now and on the mend, so I thought it all right to leave him.’
Bridie hardly heard Tom, because as he spoke he’d glanced at his watch and she’d caught sight of the time: a quarter to seven. Her absence would have been noted by now. In fact, while she slept on the bench at Strabane Station, her father would have struggled from his bed for the milking.
Sarah would be surprised her daughter wasn’t up. She would go into the room, maybe with a cup of tea to help rouse her, and she would see the bed not slept in and read the note. Oh God, how upset she would be. Angry yes, but first upset and confused, and her dear, kindly father too. She could hardly bear to think of what she’d done to them and she shut her eyes against the picture of them standing there, sadness and disappointment and shock seeping out of the very pores of their skin.
Tom knew he no longer had Bridie’s attention, but he also knew that it wasn’t mere inattentiveness or boredom with what he was saying that had distracted her, it was something much more. Maybe something he’d said or done had triggered a memory and a memory so painful that she’d shut her eyes against it. But before she’d done so, he’d seen the glint of tears there and the stricken look that had stripped every vestige of colour from her face.
He couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward and asked gently, ‘What is it?’
Bridie’s eyes jerked open at his words and, looking at him, she had the greatest desire to tell him everything, to weep for her own unhappiness and that she’d bestowed on her parents for it seemed too heavy a burden to bear alone.
But she controlled herself. How could she tell her tale to a stranger? And however kind Tom Cassidy was, he was still a stranger. She gave herself a mental shake. ‘I’m all right,’ she said, and though Tom knew she was far from so, he felt he had no right to press her further.
He knew there was something badly wrong though. Surely no parents would let a girl set out on a filthy wet winter’s morning on her own? He didn’t know how far she’d come, but by the state of her clothes, it had been some distance. What sort of family had she to allow that? And she was troubled about something right enough.
She was obviously anxious to change the subject as she said, ‘I’m sorry, you were telling me about your family. What line of work do you do in Birmingham?’
‘I