Till the Sun Shines Through

She brought herself up sharply. She couldn’t give in now. She was doing the only thing possible and was already halfway there. But it took every ounce of resolve inside her to set off again, every nerve in her crying out in protest.

She knew Cavan Halt was only a few miles away for she’d studied the timetable in detail and resolutely set off again. She said the rosary as she rode, the litany and familiarity comforting her for these were the prayers she’d been taught some many years before when the world was a safe and wonderful place. She implored God and the Virgin Mary to help her complete this hazardous but necessary journey

Liscooley Village was after Cavan Halt, but as she reached it, the rails deviated from the road, turning right in towards the station, while the road continued straight ahead to the centre of the village. Bridie was too wary of being seen, and possibly challenged, to ride through the main street so instead used the back roads and came upon the tracks again, just before the level crossing at the other side of the station.

She dismounted and tiptoed past the gatekeeper’s cottage. It was doubtful if he would have heard the whoosh and swish of the wheels on the wet road, for the wind was hurling itself around the whitewashed dwelling and rattling the windows, while the rain was now coming down in sheets, but she could take no chances.

With a sigh, Bridie mounted her bike again, feeling low-spirited and unnerved by this long solitary ride in the rain and the cold as she toiled on towards Castlefin Station. Suddenly Bridie realised the rails had disappeared away to the right, through dense tree and bushes that she couldn’t follow.

She didn’t know what to do other than continue on the roads and hope to catch up with them again. She shivered in fear at the thought of being lost in the dark cold night.

Maybe, she thought, that would be for the best, if she was to just let herself fall from the bike and curl up in a ditch somewhere to die. By the morning she would be stiff and though her parents might wonder what she was doing way out here on a strange road on her own, no one would say a word about it once she was dead. She’d once again be the sainted daughter and they would mourn her for the rest of their lives.

The tracks suddenly met the road again and Bridie drove these gloomy thoughts from her mind, sighing with relief. Castlefin Station loomed up before her a short while later and she dismounted, pushing her bike around the outside of it. Castlefin was the custom’s post and she wasn’t sure if it had a stationmaster’s house or not.

Clady, the next station, wasn’t far away, and though Bridie was just as wet and miserable as ever, and every push of the pedals was an effort now, the thought that she was nearly at her journey’s end spurred her on. Added to that, the road was flat and the road and track ran side by side and so she didn’t feel it was very long before she reached the station. Clady was the frontier post between the Irish Free State and the British-ruled six counties and just after the station, Urney Bridge, crossed the River Finn into Tyrone. It was manned in the daytime, but fortunately not at night, so Bridie dismounted again and pushed her bike along the gravel beside the tracks, too weary to look for the road bridge.

When she reached Strabane Station, she could have wept with relief. It had been a harder, more gruelling ride that she had ever imagined and yet she had reached it and couldn’t help feeling exhilarated.

That was until she tried to dismount and 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 work in the Mission hall,’ Tom said. ‘The poverty there is extreme. We take food out to those living on the streets, soup kitchens and the like, and to the families we also take food and clothes – some of the children have little more than rags to cover them and they never seem to have enough to eat.’

‘I know,’ Bridie said. ‘I saw it myself when I was over before, though I was just a child of thirteen then. It must be terrible to be so hungry and cold.’ As she spoke she realised how long it had been since she’d eaten and her stomach growled in protest.

‘Are you hungry?’ Tom said, hearing the rumble of Bridie’s stomach. ‘My mother and sisters have packed me food enough for half a dozen. Please help me eat it?’

Now he knew for certain there was something wrong, for surely to God a person wouldn’t set off for such a journey without a bite with them. What manner of family did she come from at all? But again he felt unable to pry and instead began to open the various packages his mother and sisters had pressed on him.

Bridie watched Tom’s broad hands unwrap the food, while her mouth watered in anticipation, noting that his hands were unblemished and smooth and his fingernails clean and well shaped. Then her attention was taken by the food and her interest in the man fled at such a feast before her.