Till the Sun Shines Through by Anne Bennett Read Free Book Online Page B

sister didn’t say than the words she actually used. It brought back to her mind the time she was fourteen. ‘Dirty bloody pervert!’ she exclaimed, tossing the letter to Eddie. ‘Read what our Bridie has written. God, it’s almost unbelievable. Uncle Francis, for God’s sake!’
    Eddie jiggled his baby son in his arms as he scanned the page. ‘She doesn’t say much,’ he said at last.
    â€˜Well, she wouldn’t, would she?’ Mary cried. ‘What d’you want, that she explains it to you chapter and verse? What she says and hints at is quite enough to tell me what’s going on.’
    â€˜Why doesn’t she kick the man in the balls if she’s so bothered about it and tell him to behave himself?’ Eddie asked.
    â€˜It’s not as easy as that,’ Mary said, knowing full well the dilemma Bridie would have found herself in. ‘I should have gone over to see her this summer, especially with Aunt Ellen’s rheumatics starting up again and being unable to go herself.’
    â€˜You knew nothing about this in the summer,’ Eddie reminded her. ‘And then the money was an issue with Junior here taking such a lot of it. There was your aunt being laid up too. How could you have just upped and left for a week or two?’
    Mary knew she couldn’t have done, not really, but she felt guilty about her sister. She promised her she’d be home the following summer and until then advised Bridie to be very careful of her uncle and try to avoid situations where she might find herself alone with him and to make sure she never, ever encouraged him in any way.
    At the end of the letter she suggested that she should perhaps broach the subject with her mother. But when Bridie received Mary’s reply, she screwed it up in impatience.
    What the Hell did Mary think? That she encouraged, even enjoyed, the advances of a man she thought of as a fatherly figure? And didn’t she think she’d tried to avoid being alone with him? The fact that the farm was isolated in many areas made that almost impossible. And as for telling her mother … Well, that was a non-starter.
    What had she expected, she asked herself, that Mary would come up with some plan to scupper her uncle? She didn’t know, but she did know she viewed the future with dread and would continue to unless she could find some sort of solution. Each day now she woke up with a dead weight in her heart and a stomach turning somersaults in case she should have to ask for help in some area of the work. She wished someone could tell her how to deal with it.
    By the late spring of 1930 the situation between herself and her uncle had got worse rather than better and she knew something had to be done, and so she decided to take Mary’s advice and speak to her mother.
    It was not a success. Sarah truly didn’t see there was a problem, or chose to misunderstand what Bridie was trying to say. Bridie, knowing of her mother’s naïvety, chose to believe the former. Not that she was experienced herself, but every nerve in her body cried out that what her uncle was doing was wrong. Yet, unless she was able to describe in detail what her uncle said and, more importantly, where he touched her, which she couldn’t begin to explain to her mother; she’d never understand. ‘What do you mean, you don’t like him kissing you and holding you?’ Sarah demanded. ‘Hasn’t he done that since the day you were born?’
    â€˜Yes, but …’
    â€˜But nothing, Miss. God, Bridie, I hope you’re not getting above yourself, I thought you had more sense.’
    â€˜I have, Mammy. It’s just that …’
    â€˜I hope you haven’t been bothering your father with this nonsense? You know what he thinks of Francis. God, I’d hate to be the person that came between them.’
    No, she’d said nothing to her father, she wasn’t a fool