Till the Sun Shines Through. Anne Bennett

prison, Mary? I’d never be able to bear that.’

      Mary’s own stomach lurched at that thought.

      ‘And there’s the sin of it all,’ Bridie said forlornly. ‘There’s nothing I can do to atone for this if I go through with it but if I don’t …’

      ‘If you don’t, you’d be an object of derision and scorn to everyone and with the best will in the world I couldn’t let you stay here.’

      Bridie stared at her sister, horrified. ‘Don’t look like that,’ Mary pleaded. ‘Don’t you see what would happen as soon as your condition was discovered? Ellen would have to be in the know and you never know how she would react to news like that, especially not being able to have children herself.’

      ‘But it isn’t just Ellen I’d worry about,’ Mary went on. ‘There are people around the doors from all over Ireland – Donegal even. There’s a woman known as Peggy McKenna not far from here at all. You’d hardly remember her from home, but she was the eldest of five girls – Maguire was her name then – so you may remember her sisters. Her people lived near Barnes Gap – they’d all have been at Barnes More School with you.’

      Bridie cast her mind back. ‘There were Maguire girls I remember,’ she said. ‘They were all older than me and Rosalyn, not particularly friends or anything.’

      ‘Aye, well, it would do you no good being friends with this Maguire or McKenna either, for she’s a gossip and a troublemaker, a malicious old cow altogether. She’d love just to have a hint of something amiss. Oh, I tell you, Bridie, she’d make hay out of it, so she would.’

      Mary saw the blood drain from Bridie’s face at her words. ‘Don’t worry about her,’ she told her sister. ‘We’ll have thought of something long before it becomes obvious. Peggy McKenna and her like will know nothing about any of this.’

      Bridie knew, however, that it wasn’t just Peggy McKenna she had to worry about. If she decided to have this baby here, somehow or other, her parents would get to hear of it. Ellen or Mary might easily let something slip in their letters home to make her mammy suspicious, or indeed the priest might say that Mammy had a right to know and take it upon himself to tell her. Bridie had seen coming to Birmingham as a partial solution to her problems, a safe haven where no one would know her. Now she saw quite plainly that it wasn’t far enough away. She felt very frightened and alone as she looked at her sister, her eyes misted over again with tears. ‘But where could I go, Mary, if not here?’

      ‘Well, that’s it, love,’ Mary said. ‘There are few places. There are these bloody awful homes run by the nuns where you can hide away till the baby’s born and they take it from you and give it up for adoption. From what I heard from a girl who went in one of them, it was like a prison camp. They made them work hard, even while they were in labour, and were constantly reminding them of the sin they had committed and urging them to get on their knees and beg forgiveness.’

      ‘Oh God,’ Bridie said. ‘Is that what I must do to save my immortal soul?’

      ‘Bridie, love, it’s just deciding what’s best,’ Mary said. ‘Now, if you don’t like the idea of abortion, then the home might be the only alternative.’

      ‘It’s not just that I don’t like the idea of abortion,’ Bridie said. ‘I’m scared, and if I was to die, Mary, I’d go to Hell.’

      Mary knew that too: the Church’s teaching ingrained into them both was clear. Abortion was murder and the murder of an innocent child … God! It was a desperate thought altogether. Both women were silent for quite a while, each busy with their own thoughts while the fire settled in the grate and the gas lamps hissed. Eventually, Bridie asked, ‘Does Eddie know?’

      ‘Yes, Bridie,’ Mary said. ‘Or at least he knows what I suspected from your letter.’

      ‘Aunt Ellen?’

      Mary shook her head. ‘If she knew the half of this, she’d take the first boat home and punch Francis on the jaw,’ she said angrily. ‘And while we might all want to do that, it wouldn’t help at all.’