Till the Sun Shines Through by Anne Bennett

Author:Anne Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

But 1937 was no better for anyone and as 1938 dawned, the world seemed a more turbulent place than ever. Hitler and Germany were on everyone’s lips. When Bridie let herself think of a possible war, she would tremble. However, she seldom thought about it too deeply. ‘I mean it’s not as if I could do anything to prevent it,’ she said to Mary one day. ‘Tom works hard and takes his work seriously and he’s always tired when he comes in. I don’t want to start him off worrying about a war that might never happen. There’ll be time and enough to worry about it if anything does blow up.’

Tom was often worn down by the grinding poverty he saw daily that the Mission was only able to ease for a few, and then not with any sort of permanency, and was glad Bridie thought this way. His home was like an oasis of calm in a world gone mad, for even if Peggy McKenna had called that day, Bridie would not let the fear and distaste she always evoked in her invade into the time she spent with Tom. She’d push memories of her to one side and wrap her arms lovingly around her husband.

Liam had shed his babyhood and was now a boisterous toddler and had begun to demand attention from his father when he came in at night. He and Katie were often in pyjamas and nearly ready for bed by that time and Tom would roll around the floor with the pair of them in some rough and tumble game before snuggling down in the chair, one either side of him, while he read or told them a story.

Bridie was usually at the stove and she’d smile as she’d hear them playing together. Much as the children loved her, she never got a look in when Tom was home.

After the story, when Tom would roar like the giants or monsters he read about, or squeak like the wee mouse or pant like the train, he would carry the children to bed. ‘Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire,’ he would cry and the children would giggle.

After they were tucked up with many hugs and kisses, Bridie would go up to give them both a kiss and help Katie say her prayers and feel a wave of contentment wash over her. Her eyes would often meet Tom’s and she knew he felt the same. Many times she had blessed the day she met Tom at Strabane.

And then suddenly they could relax: war had been averted. Bridie was at Ellen’s when Sam came in with the Evening Mail in the October of that year. She looked at the picture on the first page of Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper in the air. He was home from Munich after a meeting with Hitler and was declaring:

‘I believe we will have peace in our time.’

‘There,’ Bridie said with a sigh of relief. ‘All this talk of war and now it’s come to nothing.

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