‘Well, it can do you no harm,’ Ada said. ‘The nearest Catholic church to here is the Abbey, and that’s not that far from this end of Boldmere either. I don’t know if there is one nearer to wherever they are living because I’m not Catholic myself.’
‘Oh, Ada,’ Bridgette exclaimed, ‘that is a genius idea. I will try this Abbey tomorrow and go from there.’
It felt better to have a plan of some sort and
Bridgette curled up with her son in a happier frame of mind that night.
However, the priest, Father Cunningham, didn’t know of a Tom Sullivan. When he listened to the reason that Bridgette wanted to contact the man, he even called over two of his colleagues. They couldn’t help either but suggested that Bridgette try St Nicholas’s church, which was in Boldmere, and leave her address with them in case they did find out anything.
Bridgette was very despondent, but Ada was more pragmatic. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘At least they told you about the other church.’
‘Yes, St Nicholas’s in Jockey Road, and they said that was at the bottom of Boldmere Road,’ Bridgette said. ‘But I can’t go there until tomorrow, and what if that priest doesn’t know anything either?’
‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?’ Ada said. ‘We have to get your ration book too, from the Council House in Birmingham City Centre, as soon as we can. And if the priest at St Nicholas’s knows nothing, do what I suggested first and try the post office.’
Bridgette didn’t know if the priest did know anything because he was away on holiday and would be gone for two more weeks. The priest covering for him couldn’t help her. Before going back to Ada’s she walked back up Boldmere Road, and called into the post office. The man behind
the counter though didn’t know anyone by the name of Tom Sullivan either.
‘If you say he lives round here he might well call in to send letters or parcels, but I really only know the names of those collecting a pension of one kind or another. This is a busy place and we have a lot of people through the doors. We couldn’t know the whys and wherefores of them all.’
‘He has a point,’ Ada said to Bridgette when she recounted this. ‘City life is different from the country, where people might be a sight friendlier and interested in anyone that moves into the neighbourhood. Here people are left more to themselves.’
‘It’s a bit hopeless, isn’t it, Ada?
Ada thought that it probably was, but she said, ‘No, it’s not hopeless, but it’s a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, though the priest in the church in Jockey Road will likely know all about the man when he comes back.’
‘It’s almost two weeks till I can ask him,’ Bridgette said glumly.
‘Well, you could use the time to acclimatise yourself to the area,’ Ada suggested. ‘What if we go and get your ration book tomorrow, and then get off the bus early and take a dander around Erdington.’
‘If you like,’ Bridgette said with a sigh.
‘And keep your pecker up, girl,’ Ada said. ‘When you saw the size of the place, you knew it wasn’t going to be easy.’
Bridgette had known that, but she hadn’t known
that it was going to be almost impossible. If the priest at St Nicholas’s knew nothing, then Bridgette didn’t know what to do. Ada didn’t charge a great deal but even so, Bridgette couldn’t stay in Birmingham indefinitely, and when the money was nearly all gone, if she was no further forward then what the hell was she going to do?
On Thursday night there was a knock at the door and Ada, expecting it to be one of her children, opened it to find two men outside that she had never seen before.
‘Can I help you?’
‘We need to speak to a woman you have living with you, a Mrs Bridgette Laurent,’ one of the men said. ‘One of the priests at the Abbey asked us to call.’
It was obvious the men were Irish. Ada said, ‘One of you ain’t Tom Sullivan that Bridgette has been looking for?’
‘No,’ the first man said, ‘but we met Tom. When he first came over from Ireland in 1943 he travelled with us. He was not a seasoned traveller like my brother and myself, but we put him right about a few things. What he told us on the journey might help locate him now.’
Bridgette thought so too when Ada ushered the men in and they introduced themselves as Mick and Pat Donahue. ‘But how did you know I was looking for a man called Tom Sullivan?’ she asked, as Ada scurried off to make tea.
‘The priest came and told us,’ Mick said. ‘See, though we now live in Birmingham, originally we came from Donegal, like Tom, and the priest remembered that. He thought maybe we knew him and might have some idea where he’s living now. The point is, though, Donegal is a big spread-out county and we had not known anything of the Sullivans there, but, as luck would have it, we travelled together when he came over first. We met in the train and did the whole journey together.’
‘He talked plenty,’ Pat put in. ‘We thought he was one of those quiet sorts of fellows when we met him first.’
‘Maybe it was the Guinness we bought him as a cure of seasickness that loosened his tongue,’ Mick said, and Pat gave a chuckle and agreed. ‘That must have been it right enough.’
‘So what did he say?’ Bridgette asked.
‘He told us he had a niece and nephew in Birmingham,’ Mick said. ‘And that was who he was going to see. The boy was called Kevin and he had never seen him, but the girl, Molly, who hailed from Birmingham originally, had lived with him and his mother for some years after the death of her parents. Did you know any of this?’
Bridgette shook her head.
‘According to what Tom told us, Molly’s brother, who was only a wee boy at the time, was left in Birmingham with the grandfather,’ Mick went on. ‘But then the war began and when she hadn’t heard from them for a few weeks Tom said nothing
would satisfy her other than coming back and making sure that they were all right. Unfortunately, she found her grandfather had been killed in one of the raids and her brother was in an orphanage, but she took charge of him as soon as she could.’
‘You said death of her parents, Molly said. But who were her parents?’
‘Oh, we know that too,’ Pat said, taking up the story, ‘and that’s a tale on its own. Their mother was Tom’s sister Nuala.’
‘Oh,’ said Bridgette in disappointment. ‘How awful. She used to work as a nursemaid in the Big House in Buncrana.’
‘She may well have done,’ Pat said. ‘But the poor woman had been dead now for nearly eleven years, for Tom said this happened in 1935. Both her and her husband were killed together in a car crash.’
‘The poor children, and then to split them up like that…’
‘That isn’t the end of it, though,’ Pat said. ‘Nuala was sent to England because of the Troubles in Ireland and she met and married a Protestant. When she wrote and told her parents this her father had a heart attack and died. She was blamed by the mother and disowned by the family.’
Ada, coming in that minute with a tray of tea, heard what Pat had said and commented, ‘I think there are more wars and upsets caused by religion than any other damned thing. I keep well away from all of it and I will take my chance with my
maker when my time comes. I mean, was it so bad for her to marry a Protestant?’
‘Her mother seemed to think so.’
Ada shook her head as she handed around the tea. ‘Point is,’ she said, ‘I can’t think of anything that my kids would do that would make me disown them.’
‘She doesn’t sound a very nice woman,’ Bridgette said. ‘My mother told me that my father always said she was awkward and could be really nasty, and yet I am called for her.’
‘You haven’t a nature like hers, though,’ Ada said. ‘Can you imagine Finn doing summat bad enough for you not to want anything ever to do with him again?’
Bridgette shook her head. ‘Not a thing.’
‘Nor me neither,’ said Mick. ‘Though, God, they have your heart scalded sometimes. I have four of my own.’
‘Do you know what happened to Molly and where is she living now?’ Bridgette asked. ‘I would love to meet her.’
‘Of course you would,’ Mick said. ‘Families should stick together. You need to meet Tom as well, for he is your uncle and a nicer man you would never meet. As for Molly, she did all right for herself and found some civilian job on an RAF aerodrome near a place called Castle Bromwich. She rents a house nearby from one of the airmen and had her brother living with her as soon as she could. She has also, in her words, found
someone special in her life that she wanted Tom to meet.’
‘Oh, I am so glad it turned out right for her in the end,’ Bridgette said. ‘What of the grandmother?’
‘Dead and gone long ago,’ Mick said.
‘The point is, though,’ Pat said, ‘this is all we know. I remember Tom saying Molly’s father was a man called Ted Maguire, so that was her name, but if she married the man she said was so special then I don’t know what she became. The man was called Mark and I only remember that because I have the son the same name, but if Tom told us his surname then neither of us has any recollection of it.’
‘But if we go to this camp maybe someone will recognise the name Molly Maguire. That’s, of course, if the camp still exists,’ Bridgette said.
‘Only one way to find out,’ Ada said. ‘You and me will take a dander up there first thing tomorrow.’
The RAF camp was totally deserted, the fence around it buckled in many places and the gate, looking quite bedraggled, hung on its hinges. The only sign that it had ever been an aerodrome at all were the huge hangars at the very bottom of the large field and the tarmac runways crisscrossing the place. There were no Nissan huts and only piles of bricks to show that there had ever been buildings there. No one was around to ask if they remembered a Molly Maguire. Bridgette was so disappointed that she felt tears stinging her eyes.
Ada saw them and she said, ‘Don’t take on, bab.’
‘I am trying not to,’ Bridgette sniffed, ‘but this was the first real lead I had. I met two people that had actually met and talked with my uncle Tom, and heard about cousins I had no idea about and I thought that this time I really might be lucky.’ She shrugged. ‘But no. I am once more disappointed.’
‘I know,’ Ada said. ‘I thought we might get summat here as well.’
‘I wonder if she is still in the house that she rented from the airman?’ Bridgette mused.
‘Maybe,’ Ada said. ‘And then if he survived this little lot, maybe he wanted his house back again. Anyroad, whatever he did isn’t going to help us, is it, because we have no idea where the house is?’
‘No,’ Bridgette agreed. ‘And all I can say is, thank God for Finn.’
‘Yeah,’ Ada said. ‘He has a smile that nearly cuts his face in two and it makes you smile back almost despite yourself. How about taking him up the park for a bit?’
‘Is there one near?’
‘Well, Pype Hayes Park isn’t that far,’ Ada said. ‘Just up the Chester Road. We may as well give Finn a good time, even if we feel disappointed.’
It was nice to walk on grass instead of pavements, Bridgette thought a little later. She unstrapped Finn and he toddled before them, stopping to examine everything that took his attention. But neither of them was in any sort of hurry and they let him do as he pleased. To him, everything was new and exciting, and his antics brought a smile to both women’s faces.
‘He needs a ball,’ Ada said. ‘Every boy needs a ball. Not that you could get one for love nor money during the war. Didn’t think it was in the nation’s interest to use rubber for balls, I suppose. Lots of things then was unobtainable and if you said owt
about it people would say, “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” Like as if it might have slipped your memory. Things are coming back into the shops now. I bet we could get a ball for his lordship there if we tried. What d’you say?’
‘A ball would be good,’ Bridgette said slowly. ‘But…but I am afraid of spending anything I don’t have to spend just now.’
Ada looked at the lines of anxiety crisscrossing Bridgette’s face and said reassuringly, ‘I understand, and don’t worry about a thing. I’ll have a word with Bill and the others. One of them is sure to have an old ball knocking about.’
‘I don’t want you to go to any trouble.’
‘What’s the trouble about asking if they have got summat they don’t need any more that that babby would love?’ Ada said. ‘Don’t you think no more about it. Now,’ she went on, as they approached some large tennis courts, ‘if I remember right there’s a children’s playground not that far from here. Shall we take a gander? I bet his lordship will approve of that.’
Bridgette readily agreed. She really liked Ada. In many ways she reminded her of Marie Laurent—not that they looked that much alike, but both women had such a kindly nature. Living there also meant that Bridgette had begun to understand the Birmingham accent and humour more, so she didn’t have to concentrate so hard to understand what people said. She even had a grasp on the money, though it still totally confused her at times.
What threw her was when the money could be called different things, like when a one shilling piece could be called ‘a bob’ and when a shiny sixpence was also known as ‘a tanner,’ and so on, but in the main she understood it pretty well.
Ada was quite willing to help Bridgette in her quest to find her family too, though Bridgette wondered if Ada thought it a waste of time. Bridgette wouldn’t blame her if she did: she was beginning to feel that way herself. She bitterly regretted not writing to those people at the post office that Christy had told her about, and before throwing in the towel altogether she resolved to remedy that over the weekend.
A shout from Finn broke through her musings and she decided to shelve her worries and give herself over to having a good time with her son. And he did have a wonderful time. There were several safe swings for him, but as Bridgette pushed him she remembered his father saying that he always seemed to be pushing his little sister, Dolly, on the swings, and as the memory flitted across her brain, her eyes clouded over.
Ada saw it but didn’t comment. She knew Bridgette was carrying some great sorrow and couldn’t wonder at it, and she only wished that she could help her in some way.
When Finn eventually tired, Bridgette put him back in the pushchair and he made only a token objection.
Knowing he would be asleep in no time, Ada
said, ‘I fancy looking at the gardens, if you don’t mind. They used to be lovely once upon a time but in the war all the flowers was dug up and they had to grow vegetables. Half the park was given over in the same way, and I know the nation wanted feeding and that, but it weren’t so nice to look at.’
‘I never mind looking at flowers, but who lives in that big house?’ Bridgette asked as they passed a large construction not far from the playground.
‘Well, once it would have belonged to some landed gentry and all this park would have been their land. Bill goes all over, being a taxi driver, like, and he said most of the parks are the same. Don’t know how it is in France.’
‘I think most are public parks,’ Bridgette said. ‘In my small town, St-Omer, there was a public park.’ And she added, ‘most of our landed gentry fell to Madame Guillotine of course in the Revolution.’
‘My goodness!’ Ada exclaimed. ‘Did they really?’ Doesn’t bear thinking about it does it?’
Bridgette laughed. ‘No I suppose it doesn’t but that’s was how it was then,’ she said. ‘So who lives in the house now?’
‘Unmarried mothers,’ Ada said. ‘And there was a spate of them during and after the war, I can tell you. Morals and knickers fell along with the bombs, in my opinion, and them Yanks have a lot to answer for. Many of them left our girls with more than a pair of nylon stockings.’
Bridgette felt a chill run through her, and she was immensely relieved that she hadn’t told Ada the truth about her baby son. They began to walk through the flower garden, which Ada observed were being restored to their former glory, and on the other side of the gardens was a pond that she said her husband and the lads used to fish in before the war. ‘That’s of course if they didn’t use the Cut. I didn’t like the lads going down there ’cos the water runs deep, see?’
Bridgette nodded obediently as they turned away from the pond and she began pushing the pushchair up the slight incline.
Seeing her confusion, Ada laughed. ‘The Cut’s what Brummies call the canal,’ she said. ‘Anyroad, during the war they was used to transport big items, coal and the like, and the canal was all boarded over at night in case the bombers caught the gleam of water in their headlights. Birmingham made a lot of things for the war, see, and lots of factories and workshops backed onto a canal somewhere ’cos they used to tip all the waste in there. People say Birmingham has more canals than Venice. Course I’ve never seen Venice, nor am I likely to so I can’t say it has or it hasn’t. You got many canals in France?’
‘In St-Omer we have a very beautiful canal, wide and tree-lined.’
‘Blimey,’ Ada exclaimed with a laugh. ‘The Brummie cuts ain’t nothing like that.’
They had reached the brow of the hill and Ada
pointed right down at the edge of the park is a little stream. It’s over hung with trees and a pretty spot. We’ll go down one day if you like and bring a picnic; the babby will love it. But for today I’m ready to head for home. My stomach thinks my throat’s cut and I am dying for a cuppa. What about you?’
Bridgette nodded. ‘I am a little hungry,’ she said. ‘And when Finn wakes up he will be ready to eat too, I’m sure.’
‘Let’s go then,’ Ada said. ‘And leave the stream for another day.’
It was as Bridgette tucked Finn into bed that night that she remembered the child Kevin that the two Irishmen, Pat and Mick, had mentioned.
‘Maybe I could trace the others through him,’ she said to Ada later as they sat together over cups of tea. ‘I mean, I know his name is Kevin Maguire. I could try the schools.’
‘It was eleven years ago,’ Ada warned.
‘Even so.’
‘What I mean is, you don’t know how old Kevin was in 1935 when the accident happened,’ Ada said. ‘The men said he was young all right, but how young? Unless he was little more than a baby, eleven years on he will have left school.’
‘But they will have records,’ Bridgette said, ‘I am determined to try to find out.’
‘Paget Road is the nearest.’
‘Yes, but that isn’t a Catholic School, is it?’
‘No,’ Ada agreed. ‘That would be St Thomas’s at the Abbey, I would say. There is an Irish family down the street and their children all went there.’
‘Well, that’s where I will go,’ Bridgette said. ‘And first thing Monday morning.’
In the meantime she composed the letter to the McEvoys in Buncrana. It was in a similar vein to the one she sent to Christy, except she said that she had actually arrived in Birmingham and was having trouble locating the family and could any of them help at all. She read the letter over three times and still wasn’t totally happy with it but she decided it would have to do. She put it in the envelope and wrote the address with care. She hadn’t much hope that the McEvoys would be able or even willing to help her, but she knew she had to try every avenue.
Father Cunningham stopped Bridgette after Mass and asked if the Donahue brothers had been any help to her.
‘In a way, yes, thank you, Father,’ Bridgette said, and told the priest what they had told her about Molly and Kevin. ‘I went up to the aerodrome, but the place is all disbanded and deserted, and Pat and Mick said she had rented a house off a pilot but didn’t know where.’
‘That must have been disappointing for you,’
‘Oh, it was, Father, very disappointing,’ Bridgette said. ‘It was later I got to thinking of
Molly’s brother. When the accident happened he was much younger—they didn’t know how young—and so he must have gone to school somewhere. I thought he might have gone to the secondary school here.’
‘He may have done,’ the priest said, ‘but though the aerodrome was in Castle Bromwich, you don’t know where the house actually was.’
‘Well no, Father,’ Bridgette conceded. ‘But it couldn’t be that far away if Molly had to make her way to the aerodrome to work every day.’
‘No, I suppose not. What did you say the boy’s name was?’
‘Kevin Maguire, Father,’ Bridgette said.
‘I don’t recognise the name at all,’ the priest said. ‘Of course, I have only been here two years. If you had spoken to Father Clayton or Father Monahan they might have been able to help you further. They had been here for years but Father Monahan has retired and Father Clayton moved to pastures new. Still, there will be no harm in your visiting the school. In fact I will accompany you and we will see what we can find out. When were you thinking of going?’
‘Tomorrow, Father, first thing.’
The priest smiled. ‘I have some dealings with the school and I know that Monday morning is the very worst time to call, for it is very busy. Why don’t you call at the presbytery about two o’clock. I’m sure that that will be a more convenient time for them.’
‘All right then, Father,’ Bridgette said, and she turned the pram for home.
Ada had said she had to go out and couldn’t mind Finn that morning. Surprisingly she was still out when Bridgette arrived home, but the kettle hadn’t quite boiled when she heard a car pull up outside.
It was Bill’s taxi, and Ada got out of it and so did Bill, carrying a variety of items.
‘A cot for the babby,’ she said in explanation to Bridgette, who had opened the door for them. There wasn’t just a cot, but a truck too, full of bricks, a little tricycle and a football.
‘But where did they come from?’ she asked.
‘Our house,’ Bill said. ‘Mavis was glad to get rid of them. Been cluttering the loft up long enough, she said.’
‘But don’t you need them any more?’
‘Not likely,’ Bill said. ‘Our youngest is sixteen and I think Mavis would fling herself off a tall building if she found she was up the pole again, and we’ve stored the stuff for years. The football belongs to my lad, but he’s twenty and more interested in girls than footballs just now. Said the wee fellow can have it and welcome.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ Bridgette said, overcome at the kindness of Bill and his mother, and Bill’s wife too of course. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘You have said enough,’ Bill said. ‘A simple thank you was all that was needed, and now if you will excuse me I’ll go and assemble the cot.’
The following day, Ada offered to mind Finn while Bridgette went up to the Abbey School. She was only too pleased to take up her offer and she set off full of enthusiasm and hope that surely this would be it. At the Abbey School she would find Molly’s address and that in turn would lead her to the rest of her family.
However, again she was to be disappointed, thought the priest, who seemed almost as keen for Bridgette to be reunited with her family as Bridgette was herself, insisted on checking back records for seven years. The secretary, who had been at the school three times as long, insisted, however, that there had been no boy called Kevin Maguire there at any time.
There were two sisters called Sullivan. Bridgette got very excited about this although the priest did warn her that it was a very popular name in Ireland. So it proved, because within minutes of talking to the girls, Bridgette knew that they were nothing to do with the family that she was trying to trace.
‘So,’ said the priest as they walked back to the presbytery, ‘seems like it’s back to the drawing board.’