The Letter (34 page)

She lowered her head and whispered. ‘I know, I’m sorry.’

Jackie tilted her chin so he could look at her face. ‘This isn’t Billy. But it is his son, your son. This is William.’

Chrissie felt her knees start to give way and Jackie caught her under the arm. He turned her round and Chrissie saw the stranger properly for the first time. Her throat was tight and her voice a mere whisper. ‘My God. My baby.’

Her legs gave way completely then, and she sank to the ground. She buried her head in her hands and rocked gently back and forth. ‘You found me. I can’t believe you found me.’

Jackie turned to William. ‘Let’s get her inside.’

Once they were all seated in the cosy farmhouse, Tina made herself useful and brewed a pot of tea. It took her a while to get to grips with the range cooker, but eventually they were all served with a mug of hot sweet tea. As guests, William and Tina took the comfy armchairs and Chrissie and Jackie sat on the hard, straight-backed chairs. This house was not used to entertaining visitors.

‘I can’t believe this, William. It’s a miracle,’ she touched his cheek again. ‘You’re really here?’

‘Yes, I can’t quite believe it myself. There were times when we thought we’d never find you.’ He looked across at Tina. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you.’

Tina blushed slightly and took a sip of tea.

‘I never forgot about you, William. Truly, I didn’t. I’ve tried to find you myself, but the nuns wouldn’t tell me anything.’ She squeezed William’s hand a little harder. ‘How on earth did you find me?’

William leaned back in chair. ‘Well, it’s a long story.’

He told her how he had his parents’ blessing to travel to Ireland and how he had visited the convent but the Mother Superior was unhelpful, to say the least. Then he told her of Nurse Grace Quinn who had remembered her.

Chrissie’s eyes widened. ‘Grace is still there?’

‘Yes, it was her who told me your real name. I had only known you as Bronagh up until then, and it was her who encouraged me to travel to Manchester to try and find your birth certificate.’

‘Yes, we talked about my upbringing in Manchester. She was really very kind to me, to all the girls in fact. I don’t think I could have endured that place without her.’

William continued. ‘Anyway, I travelled to Manchester and that was where I met Tina.’

Chrissie glanced in her direction, wondering how she fitted into all this.

‘I doubt I would have found you if it wasn’t for this girl. I met her at the library where the records are held and found that she had already ordered a copy of your birth certificate.’

Chrissie turned to Tina. ‘Whatever for?’

Tina glanced over at William, unsure what to say next. He reached into his jacket and pulled out Billy’s letter. ‘She wanted to trace you because she felt you ought to have this.’ With a trembling hand, he passed the letter over to his mother. She slowly unfolded it and stared down at the once-familiar but now long forgotten writing. She turned to Jackie and said quietly

‘Would you fetch me my glasses, please?’ Then, thirty-five years after she was meant to, she read the words that would have changed her life.

180 Gillbent Road

Manchester

4th September 1939

My Darling Christina

I’m not very good at this sort of thing, as you know, but right now my heart is breaking and this is spurring me on. The way I treated you yesterday was unforgivable but please know that is was just the shock and no reflection of my feelings towards you. These past few months have been the happiest of my life. I know I’ve never told you this before but I love you Chrissie and if you let me I want to spend every day we have left together proving it to you. Your father tells me you don’t want to see me anymore and I don’t blame you, but it is not just about us anymore – there is the baby to consider. I want to be a good father and a good husband. Yes, Chrissie, that is my clumsy way of proposing. Please say you will be my wife so we can raise our child together. The war may separate us physically but our emotional bond will be unbreakable.

I need you to forgive me Chrissie. I love you.

Forever yours, Billy xxxx

The cottage was deathly silent as Chrissie looked up. Only Jackie was unaware of the impact it had had. She folded it up again carefully and slid it back inside the envelope. She turned to Tina, her voice wavering with emotion.

‘How did you come by this?’

Tina related her story. ‘I couldn’t understand why he would write a letter like that and never post it. I just had to find out more.’

She told Chrissie how she had visited Billy’s parents and how Alice Stirling remembered him writing the letter and going out to post it. ‘Alice told me that he called round to see you the next day, but you had already been sent to Ireland. Your mother knew nothing of the letter, but she promised to contact you and let you know Billy had called and wanted to be there for you.’

Chrissie stared straight ahead. ‘She never did.’

William shuffled uncomfortably. ‘Well, she didn’t have chance did she?’

Chrissie turned and frowned. ‘She should have tried a bit harder. I always knew she was terrified of my father, but to not tell something like this is unforgivable.’

William was confused. ‘But she died…’

‘I assumed she would be dead by now. I’ve tried to contact her over the years. She never even came to her own sister’s funeral, you know, and she promised she would be there for me when you were born, but once I’d left Manchester, she just forgot all about me.’

William and Tina stared at each other.

William cleared his throat and spoke gently.

‘Chrissie, your mother died just a few days after the war broke out. She was hit by a car during the blackout. She died before I was born.’

Chrissie felt as though she had received a hammer blow to the chest. ‘What? That can’t be true. You mean she died shortly after I arrived here? My God, why didn’t my father tell me?!’

Everything fell into place then. Her mother had not abandoned her after all and her father had denied her the chance to say a proper farewell.

She breathed deeply through her nose and fought to control her anger. She did not want to embarrass her guests, but it was no good. The years of hatred and resentment towards her father bubbled up and boiled over as she erupted into a volcanic fury.

‘God!!’ she screamed. ‘I hate that man! How could anybody do that to their own daughter?! Wasn’t it enough that he kept me from being with Billy?!’

The tears flowed freely and she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Jackie cradled her in his arms and she gave way to sobs that were so powerful she could hardly breathe.

Chapter 40

William and Chrissie stepped outside for some fresh air. It was almost dark now, but they strolled around the yard with Chrissie linking her arm through William’s as she gazed up at the clear sky where the first few stars were beginning to twinkle.

‘Do you want to tell me the rest of the story?’ asked Chrissie.

‘I want you to know everything. It’s the least you deserve. Are you sure you’re feeling strong enough?’

Chrissie sniffed. ‘I’ve tried not to think about my mother all these years. It was her abandonment of me that I found so hard to accept. I knew my father was capable of anything, but not her. I really thought she loved me. Now I find out that she died the day after I came to Ireland. It’s incredible. How could any father keep that from his daughter?’

William shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Chrissie. It’s beyond me.’

Chrissie stopped walking for a minute. ‘Do you know if he’s still alive?’

William shook his head. ‘We don’t know anything about him, I’m afraid. When Tina visited your old home in Wood Gardens she found all the old houses had been pulled down. That was where she met Maud Cutler. She was the one who first told Tina that your mother had been killed in the blackout.’

Chrissie gave a small laugh. ‘Maud Cutler. God, I haven’t heard that name in years.’

William continued. ‘Maud also gave Tina the names of your parents, so it was relatively easy for her to get a hold of a copy of your birth certificate. Once we had that, we knew that your mother’s family name was McBride. We came back to Tipperary Town and started asking around. Nobody could help us and it seemed that all our efforts had been in vain. We had even packed our bags. I was going home to America and Tina was going back to Manchester.’ He stopped for moment.

‘God, I’m going to miss that girl.’

‘So how did you find me then?’

‘Well, we went out for our last meal before we had to say goodbye in the morning and when we returned to Mrs Flanagan’s, she was waiting for us. She said she had someone in her front parlour who knew my mother.’

Chrissie’s eyes widened. ‘Who was it?’

‘A guy named Pat. He calls round here apparently and takes your produce into town. He had overheard some people talking in one of the pubs we had visited and he got in touch with Mrs Flanagan.’

‘Pat, yes. He’s been calling here for donkey’s years, ever since I first arrived. Well, would you believe it? Good old Pat!’

‘So that’s about it, really. In a nutshell that’s how we came to be here.’ He placed his arm protectively around his mother’s shoulders.

Chrissie lowered her voice so that William struggled to hear. ‘There is one more thing I need to ask.’

William’s heart quickened. He could guess what was coming.

‘Do you know what happened to Billy?’

William stopped and turned to face his mother. He took both of her hands in his. ‘There is no easy way to say this. He was killed in action in April 1940.

‘I’m so sorry, Chrissie.’

She let go of his hands and turned away. She felt up her sleeve for her handkerchief and gently dabbed her eyes.

‘I really loved him, you know.’ She turned to face him again. ‘All these years I’ve thought of him as a coward for not taking responsibility for his actions, for leaving me to fend for myself. If I had received his letter I would never have come to Ireland. We would have been together and I would have stayed in Manchester. I knew I could cope with anything if I had his support, but when my father told me that Billy had deserted me, I just knew I wouldn’t be able to do it on my own. We could have been a family, William. Maybe he wouldn’t have been killed if he knew he had so much to come back to at the end of the war. Maybe he wasn’t careful enough.’

Her huge sobs echoed round the quiet farmyard.

William wrapped her in his arms. ‘Ssshh, there’s no point in talking like that.’

‘Why didn’t he post that letter? It would have changed everything.’

William shrugged. ‘We’ll never know the answer to that, but he wrote it, didn’t he? At least you know how he felt. That’s all you have, and it will have to be enough.’

‘This has all come as such a shock, William. I feel as though I’m going to wake up any second. Thank you so much for coming to find me. You have no idea how happy you’ve made me. I just wish your father could see you now. He would have been so proud. You are so like him, William. I’m sure he would have been a wonderful father.’

‘That’s just what his mother told Tina.’ He reached inside his jacket pocket. ‘Here, Alice Stirling gave this to her.’

Chrissie took the old black and white photograph of Billy and bit down on her bottom lip as she gazed at it.

‘He really was the most handsome man. Look at him in that uniform. What on earth did he see in me?’

‘He loved you, Chrissie. You know that now.’

She passed the photograph back to William, but he put his palm up to refuse it.

‘No, you keep it.’

‘But it’s the only picture you have of your father.’

William thought of Donald then, back in Vermont. The honest, hard-working lynchpin of the family, who had strived to give William the best home he could have hoped for. He was his father and he had plenty of photographs of him. His search for his biological parents was over, and although it had answered some of his questions and brought him a degree of peace, he would never take for granted the two people who had brought him up and made him the person he was today.

He pushed the photograph towards Chrissie again. ‘Please keep it.’

It was late in the evening by the time William and Tina announced they really should be getting back.

‘But it’s dark. You can’t cycle home now,’ exclaimed Chrissie. ‘You can stay here, in the barn.’

‘In the barn?’ asked Tina.

Jackie laughed. ‘I slept in there for years. You’ll be quite comfortable. I’ll even bring you out a mug of cocoa.’

He exchanged a look with Chrissie, who smiled at the memory. What a day this had turned out to be. Her only son was home and what a fine young man he had become. The nuns had certainly placed him with kind loving parents, she had to acknowledge that.

Later, she lay in bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Even in the middle of summer her bedroom never got warm, and she needed the benefit of her winceyette nightdress all year round. She took the cocoa Jackie had made and took a sip. She could hear him downstairs now, scraping out the embers from the range ready for the morning. He still slept in the little bed in the corner even though Chrissie had insisted countless times that he should take the bedroom. He wouldn’t hear of it, of course. He was far too much of a gentleman. She took Billy’s photograph off her nightstand and stared at it again. It must have been taken only a matter of weeks after she had last seen him, but he looked much older. Maybe it was the uniform. She couldn’t bear the thought that he had gone off to war without knowing what had happened to her and their baby. She picked up his letter again and read it through to the end. She pressed it to her nose, trying to detect any lingering scent of him that might remain. Alice Stirling had told Tina that she remembered him writing the letter and going out to post it. It had a stamp in the corner and everything. Why then had Tina found it all these years later, still in his jacket pocket? It didn’t make any sense and the one person who knew the answer was dead.