FIFTEEN

      ‘Now are you sure you have everything?’ Tom whispered to Molly as she made ready to leave.

      ‘Everything,’ Molly said. ‘And there is no need for you to go with me.’

      ‘There is, and I would prefer it,’ Tom said, helping Molly through the window and following after her. ‘Anyway, I want to talk to you.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘Aye,’ Tom said. ‘Put your bag on your other shoulder and I will have your case, and we will walk arm in arm because it will be warmer, and I will tell you all about Aggie.’

      ‘Who’s Aggie?’ Molly said, glad enough to cuddle into Tom as they walked together through the raw, wintry night.

      ‘She was the eldest of the family.’

      Molly wrinkled her brow. ‘Mom never mentioned a sister. In fact,’ she said surprised, ‘no one mentioned another girl. Did she die?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Tom said. ‘I really don’t know what happened to her. She ran away from home when she was fifteen.’

      Molly stopped dead and stared at her uncle. ‘Seriously?’ she asked. ‘She actually ran away from home?’

      ‘Yes,’ Tom said. ‘Your mother was only a year old at the time, and as we were forbidden to mention her name ever after it, she never even knew about her. That’s why, when your mother sent that letter to Mammy, it was probably like a double betrayal. Two daughters gone to the bad, as it were – not that that excuses her behaviour in any way.’

      ‘Did Aggie want to marry a Protestant too then?’

      ‘No,’ Tom said. ‘As far as I am aware she didn’t want to marry anyone.’

      ‘But … Uncle Tom, she was little more than a child,’ Molly said. ‘Where did she go and why?’

      Tom shrugged his shoulders. ‘If she ever sent a letter to give any sort of explanation then I never saw it, or was told of it,’ he said.

      ‘Now,’ Molly commented, ‘why doesn’t that surprise me? But …’

      ‘Come on,’ Tom said. ‘We must walk before we stick to the ground altogether and it would never do for you to miss your train.’

      Molly saw the sense of that, but her head was still teeming with questions about the unknown Aggie she had just found out about. She wondered why her grandmother hadn’t made enquiries of her whereabouts, get the Gardaí involved as Nellie had thought Biddy might if Molly had tried to leave before she was eighteen.

      ‘Did Aggie’s life with her mother just get that difficult?’

      ‘You could say that,’ Tom said gently. ‘Poor Aggie. As the eldest she had no childhood at all and was run off her feet in much the same way you were. Look,’ he went on, ‘though I can tell you nothing of what befell Aggie after she left here, and I was then only thirteen and not in a position to help her at all, that’s why I wanted it to be different for you.’

      ‘There is no comparison,’ Molly said. ‘I have a good case full of nice clothes and a money belt full of cash, even food for the journey, and that fine torch and a rake of extra batteries, as it will be dark by the time I reach Birmingham. Every eventuality is catered for and, look, I can see the lights of the station from here. You need come no further.’

      But for all Molly’s brave words, Tom heard the quiver in her voice and knew she was perilously near to tears. For the first time, he put his arms around her and held her tight.

      ‘Don’t think the worst,’ he said. ‘Wait and see.’

      ‘It isn’t thinking the worst, Uncle Tom,’ Molly said, taking comfort from her uncle’s arms around her. ‘It is being realistic.’

      Tom, who now knew Molly well, was aware she was very near breaking point, and though he could hardly blame her, it wouldn’t help for her to go to pieces now. He released her and said, ‘Come on now. You have to stay strong for young Kevin. If you are right – and I hope and pray that you are not – then how must he be feeling?’

      Molly straightened her shoulders and wiped her eyes, for her uncle was right and if some second terrible tragedy meant that they were left alone in the world, then it was down to her, because she was eighteen, almost an adult, and old enough now to see to her brother. As soon as she reached Birmingham, she intended to seek him out.

      Tom saw with relief that Molly had recovered herself and said, ‘You will write? Even if you have no permanent address for me to write back to, let me know you are all right. Nellie will hold any letters you send me?’

      ‘I will be glad to write to you,’ Molly said. She stood on tiptoe and kissed her uncle on the cheek. ‘Thank you for your kindness to me over the years.’

      Tom’s face was flushed crimson with embarrassment and his voice gruff as he said, ‘Everything I did for you was a pleasure, and you may as well know that I will miss you greatly, more than I ever thought possible. But now you must go, for the train will not wait.’

      Tom watched Molly walk away until the darkness swallowed her up. Burned into his memory was the day many years before when Aggie had climbed out of the window to make for England and to the very city that Molly was making for. From the night he’d watched her climb into the cart at the top of the lane, he never saw or heard from her again and he knew he wouldn’t rest until he got a letter from Molly saying she was all right.

      Molly knew the train she would travel to Derry on would be a goods train really, but she would be comfortable enough in the passenger coach they attached to the end. When she booked her ticket, the stationmaster warned her the journey would be slow with plenty of stops, but this was the only convenient train. The other passenger trains didn’t go out until too late for Molly to catch the mail boat when it sailed with the tide at about ten to eight.

      That early winter’s morning, Molly entered the carriage with a sigh. She could hardly credit that she was here at last, on her way to Birmingham, and on this date, Tuesday, 19 November, more that five years after she had left it. Had she just been going home in the normal way she would have been in a fever of excitement, but the nagging knot of worry about the safety of her loved ones had crystallised into real alarm at the arrival of Kevin’s note and she wished the journey was over and she was safe at the other end.

      She stacked her case in the rack above her and sat back in the seat. Thanks to Nellie and Cathy’s generosity she was warmly and respectably clad for the journey. She had delighted in the feel of the soft underclothes against her skin and the brassiere that cupped her breasts so comfortably as she had dressed that morning, and she had chosen to wear the tartan skirt and the red